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THE 



SINNER'S GUIDE. 

IN TWO BOOKS: 
BOOK I. 

CONTAINING 

A FULL AND AMPLE EXHORTATION TO THE PURSUIT 

OF VIRTUE; 

WITH 

INSTRUCTIONS AND DIRECTIONS HOW TO BECOME VIRTUOUS. 

4 

BOOK II. 

THE DOCTRINE OF VIRTUE ; 

WITH 

NECESSARY INSTRUCTIONS AND ADVICE FOR MAKING A MAN VIRTUOUS. 



BY THE REV. F. LEV^^IS, 

OF GRANADA, 
PROVrNCLAL OF THE ORDER OF ST. DOMINICK, IN THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. 



STranslateti from tfje Spanfsfi). 




PHILADELPHIA: 
HENRY M'GRATH, No. 1 SOUTH EIGHTH STREET. 

1845. 



Q- 



-^•f 



>^^' 

v-^^ 



The " Sinner's Guide," by Father Lewis, of Granada, is a work highly cele- 
brated for its great practical usefulness to all who seek to persevere in virtue, 
and is recommended as such to the Catholics of this diocess. 

f Francis Patrick Kenrick, Bishop, Philadelphia. 
Dec. 10, 1844. 



B. M. DUSENBERY, STEREOTYPER. KING & BAIED, PRINTERS. 






PREFACE. 



SAY to the just man, that it is well ; Isa. iii. 10. This is a 
message from God, delivered by the prophet Isaias, to all the just ; 
it is the shortest in words, and the most copious in bounty, that 
could have been sent. Men are usually free in promising, but slow 
in performing ; God, on the contrary, is so hberal and magnificent 
in performing, that all the expressions of his promises are infinitely 
short of his actions. For what could be expressed shorter than 
the aforesaid sentence. Say to the just man, that it is well? 
Yet how comprehensive is this word well ! which I conceive was, 
therefore, not enlarged upon or distinguished, that men might be 
sensible no words were sufficient fully to express it, nor any dis- 
tinction requisite to declare what sort of blessings were compre- u t^ 
hended under this w^ord well, which includes all that can be imagined. ' ' 
So that, as when Moses asked of God w^hat name he had, the answer 
was. He that is, without adding any other word, to show that his 
being was not limited and bounded, but that it comprehended every 
being and perfection which belongs to the said Being, without mix- 
ture of imperfection ; so here he delivered this short word well, 
Avithout explaining it, to signify that all the blessings the heart of 
man is capable of desiring, are contained under this promise God 
makes to the just man in reward of his virtue, expressed by the 
single monosyllable well. 

2. This is the main subject I design, by the help of God, to treat 
of in this book, adding such rules and instructions as are proper to 
make a man virtuous. Accordingly, it shall be divided into two 
principal parts. The first will show how much it is our duty to 
follow virtue, and the inestimable benefits and advantages we reap 
by so doing ; the second shall treat of a virtuous life, and prescribe 
a method and directions for attaining it. For there are two things 
requisite towards making a man virtuous ; the one is, that he really 
desire to be such ; the other, that he know how to compass it. 
The first book shall answer the end of the former of these two 
points ; the second, the latter ; since, as Plutarch very well ob- 
serves, " those who excite us to virtue, and teach us not the way 
to it, are like those that fight a lamp, but put in no oil to feed the 
flame." 

3. Though this second part be so necessary, yet the first is much 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

more absolutely so, for the light and law of nature, born with us, 
teach us how to distinguish between good and evil ; but there are 
great contradictions and impediments proceeding from sin, both 
within and without man, which obstruct his loving the one, and 
hating the other. For man being composed of spirit and flesh, 
and each of these naturally inclining to its likeness, the flesh seeks 
carnal things, in which the vice is predominant, and the spirit 
spiritual things, in which virtue prevails. Thus the spirit suffers 
much contradiction from the flesh, which regards nothing but what 
is dehghtful, and whose desires and appetites are violent, since the 
guilt of original sin broke the reins of original justice, which served 
to curb them. Nor is it the flesh alone that opposes the spirit, but 
the world, which, as St. John says, is armed on all sides with vice; 
as also the devil, the mortal enemy of virtue ; and the ill custom 
of habit, become a second nature, at least in those that have been 
long in it ; and, therefore, it cannot be denied to be a matter of 
great difficulty, and which requires some assistance, to break 
through all these obstacles and contradictions, and to desire, sin- 
cerely and heartily, to be virtuous, in spite of the flesh and all its 
confederates. 

4. The design of the first of these two books is to give some 
assistance in this point ; w^herein I have used my utmost endeavors 
to bring all the arguments this work would admit of in behalf of 
virtue, showing the great advantages that attend it, both in this 
life and in the next ; as also how much we are obliged to pursue 
it, because God requires it of us, to whom our duty is so great, as 
well in regard to what he is in himself, as what he is towards us. 

5. The motive I had to treat this subject was, that I saw most 
men extol virtue and follow vice, and conceived that, among many 
other causes which produced this evil, one was, that such persons 
did not understand the nature and properties of virtue, looking 
upon it as harsh, barren and dull : and, therefore, believing vice to 
be more delightful, they give themselves wholly up to it, utterly 
casting off virtue, which they suppose to be distasteful. Being, 
therefore, concerned to see mankind thus deluded, I resolved to 
take the pains here to describe the inestimable worth, amiableness, 
dignity and beauty of this heavenly spouse, and to make appear 
how little she is known, that this might undeceive and induce 
them to fall in love with what so well deserves it. For if it be 
true, that virtue is one of the most excellent things in heaven or 
on earth, and which best merits love and esteem, it is a great mis- 
fortune that man should so little know, and keep at such a distance 
from this great good ; and, therefore, he does the public signal ser- 
vice who endeavors to restore this lady to her honor, and seat her 
on her royal throne, since she is sovereign queen and mistress of 
all things. 

6. Before I enter on it, I will show by an example with what 



PREFACE. 6 

attention this work is to be read. The heathens write of their 
renowned Hercules, that, being grown up to those years when men 
use to choose what course of life they will follow, he retired to a 
solitary place to consider seriously upon this matter, where there 
occurred to him two distinct methods of living, the one of virtue, 
the other of pleasure ; and after weighing both of them maturely, 
he at last resolved to follow the way of virtue, and forsake that of 
delight. If any thing in this world requires good advice, and a 
steady resolution, it is the same: for if we so often make reflection 
on those things which are for the benefit of life, how much more 
application ought we to make for the business of life itself, espe- 
cially since in the world there are many guides and ways of 
living. 

7. This it is, Christian reader, I would have you do, and what I 
invite you to, viz. that laying aside for a short time, all the cares 
and business of the world, you withdraw yourself into this spiritual 
solitude, and diligently consider what course of life you had best 
to steer. Remember that, among all worldly concerns, there is 
none requires more solicitude, and a longer study, than the choice 
of what life we are to follow : for, if tliis be rightly instituted, all 
other things will go right ; and, on the contrary, if this be mistaken, 
every thing else will go wrong. So that to be right or wrong, in 
other cases, concerns only particulars ; this alone is universal and 
comprehends all. For what can be built upon an ill foundation ? 
What will all other prosperities, and prudential acts signify, if life 
itself be disorderly ? Or what harm can all adversities and mistakes 
do, if life be duly formed ? What is a man advantaged (says our 
Saviour) if he gain the whole world and lose himself, and cast 
away himself? Luke ix. 25. So that there is not, under the sun, 
any business of more moment to be treated than this ; nor is there 
any that more nearly concerns man ; for it is not his honor or for- 
tune that lies at stake here, but the life of his soul, and everlasting 
bliss. Do not, therefore, read this cursorily, as you do other things, 
turning over many leaves, and hastening to the end, but sit down 
like a judge on the tribunal of your heart, and give ear to these 
words vdth silence and attention. This is no business to be done 
with precipitation, but requires much sedateness, as treating of the 
whole business of life, and all that depends on it. Consider how 
nice you are in examining worldly affairs, since you will not stand 
to the judgment of one bench, but appeal to higher courts and 
judges, that they may not miscarry. And since the matter you 
have in hand does not concern earth but heaven, not the things 
belonging to you, but your own soul ; remember this is not to be 
treated negligently, as if you were half asleep, but with much ap- 
phcation. If hitherto you have been in the wrong, reckon your- 
self now new born in the world ; let us now call ourselves to an 
account, let us wipe off all past miscarriages, and turn over a new 

A2 



PREFACE. 



leaf. that you would now believe me, listen to me attentively, 
and, like an upright judge, give sentence according to what shall 
be alleged and made out : How happy would your choice be ! How 
fortunate my labor ! 

8. I am sensible my wish is very great, and no pen is able to 
bring it to pass ; for which reason, I here, in the beginning, be- 
seech him who is the virtue and wisdom of his Father, and who 
has the keys of David, to open and shut to whom he pleases, that 
he will be present with, and instil himself into these words, and 
give them spirit and life, to move such as shall read them. Yet, 
if I reap no other fruit of my labor, but the satisfying my own de- 
sire, in abundantly extolling so commendable a thing as virtue is, 
which I have long coveted, I shall look upon this alone as a suffi- 
cient reward for all my labors. I have endeavoured in this, as in 
all my other works, to suit myself to all persons, either spiritual or 
carnal, that, since the necessity and cause is universal, my writing 
may be so too. For good men, by reading this book, will be more 
confirmed in the love of virtue, and take deeper root in it ; and 
those who are not so will, perhaps, discover how great losers they 
are in deviating from it. According to this doctrine, good parents 
may educate their children from their infancy, that from those 
tender years it may become habitual for them to honor, worship and 
follow virtue, for a virtuous child is one of the greatest blessings a 
father can have. 

9. This work may be also of great use to those whose duty it 
is to instruct the people, and preach up virtue ; because the prin- 
cipal motives and inducements to oblige us to embrace it are here 
orderly set down, and whatsoever has been written upon this sub- 
ject, may be reduced to them as to common places. And as we 
here speak of the present advantages of grace promised to virtue, 
specifying twelve singular privileges it enjoys, and that it is most 
certain all these riches and blessings were conferred on us through 
Jesus Christ, therefore, this doctrine is very beneficial for the better 
understanding those books of Holy Writ, which particularly treat 
of the mysteries of Christ, and the inestimable benefit of our re- 
demption, such as the prophet Isaias, the Canticles, and the like. 



THE ARGUMENT. 



1. This first book, Christian reader, contains an ample exhor- 
tation to virtue, that is, to the keeping of God's commandments, 
wherein true virtue consists. It is divided into three principal 
parts. The first is, a persuasive to virtue ; to this purpose, making 
use of all those arguments holy authors, for the most part, have 
brought upon this subject, which are our infinite obligations to Al- 
mighty God, as well in regard of what he is himself, as what he is 
to us, on account of his inestimable benefits, as also of what great 
consequence virtue itself is to us, which is sufficiently expressed 
by the four last things relating to the end of man, death, judgment, 
hell and heaven, which is the subject of this first part. 

2. The second is, to persuade the same thing, but by other argu- 
ments, viz., the advantages of grace promised to virtue in this life : 
and here are set down twelve singular privileges belonging to it, 
every one of which is particularly discoursed of. Though holy 
authors sometimes briefly hint at these privileges, speaking of the 
peace, inward light, true liberty, comfort of a good conscience, and 
consolation of the Holy Ghost, enjoyed by the just, and the usual 
concomitants of virtue, yet I have not met with one that has handled 
this subject at large, and in due order. This has caused me more 
laborious research, in selecting and putting together all these mat- 
ters out of several parts of the Holy Scriptures, giving them their 
proper names, placing them in order, and expounding and support- 
ing them with several other texts of Scripture, and of the writings 
of the holy fathers : which method was very requisite to be used, 
to the end, that those who are not excited to the love of virtue 
by the hope of blessings to come, as believing them too remote, 
may at least be moved by the inestimable value of the advantages 
which at present attend it. 

. 3. But because it is not sufficient to adduce those arguments 
that make for a cause, without confuting those that may be alleged 
against it, therefore, we have formed the third part of this book, in 
which all the excuses vicious men plead for avoiding virtue are 
answered and confuted. 

4. Now, that the reader may not be confounded, he is to under- 
stand, that this first book answers to the first of The Memorial of 
a Christian Life, which, as well as this, contains an exhortation to 

(7) 



8 ARGUMENT. 

virtue ; but that there it is short, as became a memorial, but is here 
very large, solidly handling this necessary and noble subject, which 
is supported by all that has been piously wrote in the world. The 
.second book answers to the short Rule of Christian Life we gave 
there, which is here much dilated upon ; and because virtue is the 
object of those books, the reader may observe, that by this word 
we do not only express the habit of virtue, but the acts and duties, 
to which this noble habit tends ; but it is no new thing to call the 
effect by the name of the cause, and the cause by that of the 
effect. 



THE 



SINNER^S GUIDE. 



BOOK I. 

A POWERFUL EXHORTATION TO VIRTUE, AND THE KEEPING OF 
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Of the first Motive that obliges us to Virtue mid the Service of 
God, which is his Being, considered in itself; and of the Ex- 
cellency of his Divine Perfections, 

1. Two things, Christian reader, particularly dispose the will 
of man to the undertaking of any commendable action. The con- 
sideration of duty and justice is the one ; the other, the benefit 
and advantage we may reap by it. All wise men, therefore, 
agree, that justice and profit are the two most powerful induce- 
ments to inchne our will to whatsoever it ought to undertake. 
Now, though profit be more generally sought after, yet justice is, 
in itself, the more prevalent of the two ; for, as Aristotle teaches, 
no worldly advantage can be equivalent to the excellence of virtue, 
nor any loss so great, as that a prudent man should not embrace 
it rather than incline to vice. The design of this book being to 
allure and incline men to embrace the beauty of virtue, it wdll be 
proper to begin with the principal part, showing how far we are 
obliged to it, on account of the duty we owe to God, who, being 
goodness itself, neither commands, requires or asks any thing in 
this world, but that we be virtuous. Let us see, in the first place, 
and seriously consider, on what grounds, and for what reasons, 
Almighty God claims this duty of us. 

2. But since these are innumerable, we shall here touch upon 
only six of the chief of them, on account of every one of which, 
man owes all he is or can do. The first, greatest and most inex- 
phcable of them, is the very being of God, which comprehends 
the greatness of his infinite majesty and of all his perfections ; 
that is, the incomprehensible immensity of his goodness and 

2 (9) 



10 THE sinner's guide. 

mercy, of his justice, his wisdom, his omnipotence, his excellence, 
his beauty, his fidelity, his sweetness, his truth, his felicity, with 
the rest of those inexhaustible riches and perfections that are con- 
tained in his divine essence. All which are so great and wonder- 
ful, that, according to St. Augustine, if the whole world were full 
of books, and each particular creature employed to write in them, 
and all the sea turned into ink, the books would be sooner filled, 
the writers sooner tired, and the sea sooner drained, than any one 
of his perfections could be fully expressed. The same doctor 
says further, that should God create a new man, with a heart as 
large and as capacious as the hearts of all men together, and he, 
by the assistance and favor of an extraordinary light, come to the 
knowledge of any one of his inconceivable attributes, the pleasure 
and delight this must cause in him would quite overwhelm and 
make him burst with joy, unless God were to support and 
strengthen him in a very particular manner. 

3. This, therefore, is the first and chief reason, that obliges us 
to the love and the service of God. It is a point so universally 
agreed upon, that the very Epicureans, who, by their denying of 
a Divine Providence, and the immortality of the soul, have ruined 
all philosophy, never went so far as to cut off all religion, which 
is nothing else but the worship and adoration w^e owe to God. 
For one of those philosophers, discoursing upon this matter (Cic. 
de Nat. Deorum), brings very strong and undeniable arguments, 
to prove, that there is a God ; that this God is infinite in all his 
perfections, and deserves, therefore, to be reverenced and adored ; 
and that this duty would be incumbent on us, though God had 
no other title to it. If a king, even out of his ovm dominions, 
purely only for the dignity of his person, is treated with respect 
and honor, when we have no expectation of any favor from him ; 
with how much more justice are we to pay the same duties to 
this King and Lord, who, as St. John says, has these words writ- 
ten upon his garment, and upon his thighs. King of kings and 
Lord of lords ! This is he, who with three fingers holds up the 
frame of the earth. It is he that disposes the causes of all things ; 
it is he that gives motion to the celestial orbs, that changes the 
seasons, and that alters the elements. He it is that divides the 
waters, produces the winds, and creates all things. It is from 
him that the planets receive their force and influences. It is 
he, in fine, that, as King and Lord of the universe, gives every 
creature its life and nourishment. And, besides all this, the king- 
dom he is in possession of, neither came to him by succession, 
nor by election or inheritance, but by nature. And as man is na- 
turally above an ant, so this noble Being is, in such an eminent 
degree, above all created things whatsoever, that they, and all the 
world together, are scarce any more, in regard of him, than one 
of these insects. If philosophers, so ill principled as the Epicu- 



THE sinner's guide. 11 

reans were, have acknowledged this truth, what ought we to do, 
who are brought up in the Christian rehgion ? — a reUgion, which 
teaches us, that, notwithstanding the infinite obhgations we have 
to God, we are more indebted to him upon this account than upon 
any other ; so that, if a man had a thousand hearts and bodies, 
this reason alone should be enough to make him offer them all 
to his honor and service. This is a point which all the saints, 
who have had a sincere and disinterested love for him, have 
faithfully complied with. And, therefore, St. Bernard, upon this 
subject, says, " True love is neither increased by hope, nor les- 
sened by distrust;" Serm. 83, in Cantic. Hereby giving us to 
understand, that it is not the reward he expects, that makes him 
serve God : but that he would go on still wdth the same fervor, 
though he were sure he should never have any thing for it ; because 
he is not influenced by interest, nor wrought upon by any other 
consideration, but that of the pure love which is due to his infinite 
goodness. 

4. But though this, of all obligations, is the greatest, yet it is 
that which, least of all, moves those who are not perfect. Be- 
cause the greater power self-love has over them, the more they 
are carried on by their own interest ; and, being as yet but rude 
and ignorant, they are unable to conceive the beauty and excel- 
lence of this supreme goodness. Whereas, were they but a little 
more enlightened, the very brightness of this divine glory would 
charm them into a love of it above all other things. For which 
reason, it will be very proper to instruct them upon this matter, 
that they may acquire a more perfect knowledge of the majesty 
of God. All I intend to make use of, for the effecting of this, 
shall be taken out of St. Denis, who wrote his treatise of Mysti- 
cal Divinity with no other design, but to let us know how infi- 
nitely different God Almighty's excellences and perfections are, 
from those of creatures : that, by seeing this, we may learn, if we 
have a mind to know what God is, the necessity of shutting our 
eyes to the beauties we observe in creatures, for fear of deceiving 
ourselves, whilst we judge of God by those things that bear no 
proportion at all with his greatness. We are to look upon them 
as mean and base, and raise up our souls to the contemplation 
of a Being that exceeds all beings; of a Substance, above all 
other substances ; of a Light, that eclipses all other lights ; and of 
a Beauty, which is so far beyond all beauties imaginable, that the 
greatest of them, and the most complete, is but ugliness and de- 
formity when set by this. This is what we are told by the cloud 
Moses entered into to discourse with God, which removed every 
thing but God from him, that he might, by that means, have a bet- 
ter knowledge of God ; Exod. xxiv. 16, 18. And EUas's covering 
his face with his cloak, when he saw the glory of God passing 
before him, is a lively expression of the same thing; 3 Kings, 



12 THE sinner's guide. 

xix. 13. It is certain, then, that a man, to contemplate the per- 
fections and beauty of God, should turn away his eyes from all the 
things of this world, as too base and mean to be regarded at the 
same time with him. 

5. We shall understand this much better, if we consider the 
vast difference between this uncreated Being and all that are 
created; that is to say, between the Creator and his creatures. 
For all these we see had a beginning, and may have an end ; but 
he is without a beginning, and can have no end. They all 
acknowledge a superror, and depend upon another ; but he knows 
nothing above himself, and, therefore, is independent. The crea- 
tures are variable and inconstant, but the Creator is always the 
same, and cannot change. The creatures are composed of dif- 
ferent matters, but the Creator is a most pure Being, and free 
from all those mixtures which bodies are made up of; for, should 
he consist of several parts, there must, of necessity, have been 
some being above and before him, to have ordered these parts, a 
thing altogether impossible. The creatures can never come to 
such a degree of perfection as not to admit of a further increase ; 
they may receive more than they have already, and know what 
they are at present ignorant of; but God can never be better 
than he is now, because he contains within himself the perfec- 
tions of all other beings : nor is it possible that he, who is the 
Source of all riches, should ever be richer. Nor can he know 
more than he does already, because his wisdom is infinite, and 
his eternity, which has all things present to it, suffers nothing to 
be concealed from his knowledge. Aristotle, the chief of all the 
heathen philosophers, not ignorant of this truth, calls him a pure 
act; which is a complete and absolute perfection, incapable of 
any further addition, there being nothing imaginable above it ; 
nor can we think of any thing it stands in need of. There is no 
creature in the world free from motion and change ; and it is this 
that helps them in the finding of what they want, for they are 
all of them poor and needy. God, on the contrary, is fixed and 
immovable ; because he is never exposed to any kind of necessity, 
but is present in all places. There is, in all created things, 
some difference or other, by which one creature is to be easily 
known and distinguished from another ; but the purity of God^s 
essence allows of no difference or distinction. So that his being 
is his essence, his essence is his power, his power is his will, his 
will is his understanding, his understanding is his being, his 
being is his wisdom, his wisdom is his justice, his justice is his 
mercy. And though the effects of the one are contrary to those 
of the other, because the duty of mercy is to pardon, and that 
of justice to punish ; they are, notwithstanding, so perfectly one 
and the same thing in him, that his mercy is his justice, and his 
justice is his mercy. So that to appearance, there are contrary 



THE sinner's guide. 13 

perfections and qualities in God ; but yet, as St. Augustine ob- 
serves, there is no such thing in effect (Medit. c. 19 and 20), 
because he is very remote and yet very present, very beautiful and 
very strong, constant and inconceivable, confined to no place 
and in all places, seen by none, and yet seeing all, who changes 
every thing, whilst he himself can never change. He it is, who 
is always in action, and yet always enjoys an eternal rest: it is 
he that fills all things, but cannot himself be circumscribed : who 
provides for all without the least solicitude : who is great without 
quantity, and consequently immense ; who is good without qual- 
ity, and, therefore, truly and sovereignly good; nay, what is yet 
more, he only is good ; Matt. xix. 17. In fine, not to lose our- 
selves in this abyss, w^e may venture to say, that as all things are 
tied up to the bounds of a limited being, so they have a limited 
power, beyond which they can never pass. The works they are 
employed about are limited, the places they live in have their 
bounds, they have names to distinguish them by, and definitions 
by which we may know them, and are reducible to their particu- 
lar kinds. But as for this supreme Substance, it is as infinite in 
its power, and in all its other attributes, as it is in its being. It 
is not known by any definition, nor comprehended under any 
kind, nor confined to any place, nor distinguished by any name. 
On the contrary, according to St. Denis, it has all names, though 
it has no name, because it contains within itself all those perfec- 
tions which are signified by names. We may, therefore, say, that 
all creatures, as they are limited, are to be comprehended ; whilst 
this divine essence, inasmuch as it is infinite, is far above the 
reach of any created understanding. For, as Aristotle says, since 
that which is infinite has no end, it is not to be comprehended 
but by him alone who comprehends all things. What else could 
be the meaning of those two seraphims Isaias saw near the ma- 
jesty of God, seated upon a high throne, each of w^hich had six 
wings ; with two of them they covered his face, and with two his 
feet ; Isa. vi. 12. Was it not to teach us, that these, which pos- 
sess the chief places in heaven, and are seated the nearest to 
God, are not capable of knowing perfectly w^hat he is, though 
they have the favor to see him clearly, in his very essence and in 
all his beauty ? For as a man, standing on the shore, sees the 
sea itself yet cannot discover its depth or extent, so these blessed 
spirits, with all the saints in heaven, see God truly and really, 
but can neither fathom the abyss of his greatness, nor measure 
the duration of his eternity. For this reason God is said to he 
seated upon the chervbims : and, though they are filled with trea- 
sures of wisdom, nevertheless, to show how short they come of 
conceiving his majesty, or of imderstanding his essence, it is said, 
that he sits upon them. 

6. This is the darkness David speaks of, when he says, God 

B 



14 THE SINNER S GUIDE. 

made darkness his covert; Ps. xvii. 12. To give us to understand 
what the apostle has expressed more clearly, saying that God 
inhahiteth light inaccessible ; 1 Tim. vi. 16- The prophet calls 
hght darkness, because it dazzles our eyes so that we cannot 
look against it to see God. And as, according to one of the phi- 
losophers, there is nothing more resplendent or visible than the 
sun, and nothing at the same time which we can less look at, be- 
cause of its extraordinary brightness and the weakness of our 
sight ; in like manner, there is nothing more intelligible in itself 
than God is, and yet nothing, for the same reason, that we under- 
stand less. 

7. If, therefore, any man desire to know what God is, when 
arrived at the highest degree of perfection he is capable of con- 
ceiving, he must with humility confess, that an infinite space still 
remains ; that what he proposed to himself is infinitely greater 
than he imagined ; and that the more sensible he is of these in- 
comprehensibilities, the further advance he has made in this sub- 
lime science. For this reason St. Gregory, writing upon those 
words of Job, v. 9, Who doth great things and unsearchahle, and 
wonderful things without number — says thus : We never speak 
better of the works of the Almighty God, than when, surprised 
with astonishment and ravished with wonder, we keep an awful 
silence. And as those persons, who design to praise another, 
whose deserts are beyond all they are able to say, think they best 
discharge themselves from their obligation when they say nothing 
at all ; so ought we, in St. Denis's opinion, to reverence the won- 
ders of this supreme Deity with a holy and profound respect of 
soul, and with a chaste and devout silence. The saint seems 
herein to allude to those words of David, A hymn, O God, becom- 
eth thee in Sion (Ps. Ixiv. 2), which St. Jerome has translated thus : 
" Thou, O God, art praised by silence in Sion :" to signify to us, 
that we cannot praise God in a more perfect manner than by 
saying nothing at all in praise of him, acknowledging the inca- 
pacity of our understanding, ow^ning with humility that this inex- 
pressible substance is too high for us to conceive ; and confess- 
ing that his being is above all beings, his power alDOve all pow- 
ers, his greatness above all greatnesses, and that his substance 
infinitely excels, and is inconceivably different from all other sub- 
stances, whether material or spiritual. Upon which St. Augus- 
tine says excellently well, " When I seek my God, I seek not the 
beauty of the body, nor the agreeableness of the seasons, nor the 
brightness of the light, nor the sweet charms of the voice, nor 
the odoriferous smell of flowers, perfumes and essences; it is 
neither manna nor honey, nor any other thing that is pleasing to 
the flesh ; I seek none of these things when I seek my God : and 
yet I seek a certain light not to be seen by the eyes, and exceed- 
ing all hght ; a voice beyond all yoices, yet not to be discerned 



THE sinner's guide. 15 

by the ears ; a smell surpassing all smells, which the nostrils are 
not capable of; a sweetness more delightful than all sweetness, 
yet unknown to the taste, and a satisfaction above all satisfactions, 
that is not to be felt. For this light shines where there is no 
place, this voice sounds where the air does not carry it away, this 
smell is perceived where the wind does not disperse it, and this 
taste delights where there is no palate to relish it, and this satis- 
faction is received where it is never lost." L. 10. Conf. c. 6. 
Soliloq. c. 81. 

§ I. — 8. If none of these reasons, as weighty as they are, can 
give you the satisfaction you expect, of having some idea of this 
unspeakable majesty, cast your eyes upon the frame of this mate- 
rial world, the work of God's own hands ; that so the contempla- 
tion of such a noble effect may give you some insight into the 
excellence of the case. Presupposing, in the first place, with 
St. Denis, that in every thing there is a being, power and action, 
which bear such proportion to one another, that the power is 
always suitable to the being, and the action to the power. This 
being presupposed, consider the beauty, the order and extent of 
this world : since, as astronomers tell us, there are stars in heaven 
fourscore times as big as the earth and sea together. Consider 
again, how many different sorts of creatures there are upon the 
earth, in the water and in the air ; you will see every thing so 
complete and perfect in its kind, monsters only excepted, that 
you can wish for nothing to be added or diminished, to make its 
being more complete ; and yet, according to St. Augustine, who 
grounds his opinion on Ecclesiasticus xvii. 1, God, in one single 
moment, created this world, as great and wonderful as it is ; drew 
a being from no being, and wrought this great work without any 
matter to work upon; without any help or assistance; without 
any outward draft or platform ; without any tools or instruments ; 
without any Hmits of either space or time. He created the whole 
earth, and all that is contained within the extent of the same, by 
one single act of his will. Consider, further, that God could 
have produced a thousand worlds more, much fairer and larger 
than this, much better peopled too, as easily as he created this ; 
and that, if he had made them, he could with as much ease, and 
without any kind of opposition, reduce them to nothing again. 

Now, if, according to our supposition taken from St. Denis, by 
the effects and operations of things we judge of their power, and 
by their power of their being ; how powerful must that cause be, 
which has produced such wonderful effects ! And, if this power 
be so great, what must the Being be, which we are to judge of 
by this power ? This, doubtless, surpasses all expression or im- 
agination ; and yet we are further to consider, that all these great 
and perfect works, which are or might have been, are nothing at 
all in comparison of the divine power, but infinitely inferior to 



16 THE sinner's guide. 

it : who then, can reflect on, or contemplate the greatness of so 
eminent a Being, and so high a power, without surprise and 
astonishment? Yet, though we did not see with our corporal 
eyes, we cannot, from what has been said, but conceive, in some 
measure, how great and incomprehensible this power is. 

9. St. Thomas, in his Sum of Divinity, explains this infinite 
greatness very clearly, by this example : We see, says he, that in 
material or corporeal things, that which is the most perfect is 
the greatest in quantity. Thus the water is greater than the 
earth, the air is greater than the water, and the fire greater than 
the air. The first heaven is greater than the element of fire ; 
the second heaven greater than the first ; the third than the 
second ; and so of the rest, till you come to the tenth sphere or 
empyreal heaven, which is of unmeasurable greatness. This will 
appear much plainer yet, if we consider what proportion the sea 
and earth joined together have with the heavens ; for astronomers 
tell us, they are both but as a point in comparison of them: 
which they prove by this demonstration. They divide the heav- 
ens equally into twelve signs, through which the sun performs its 
yearly course ; and because a man may always see six of these 
signs, in whatsoever part of the earth he be, they conclude, that 
the earth is but as a point, or a sheet of paper, in the middle of 
the world ; for, if its extent could be, though ever so little, com- 
pared with that of the heavens, we should not be able to discover 
half of them at once, in any part of the earth whatsoever. Now, 
if the empyreal orb, the most excellent and most noble of all 
material substances, is so incomparably bigger than all the other 
orbs ; we may from thence infer, that God, who is above all beings 
imaginable, whether corporeal or spiritual, as being the Author of 
them all, must be infinitely greater than all of them together ; not 
in quantity, for he is a pure Spirit, but in the excellence and per- 
fection of his being. 

10. But, to come more home to our subject, you may, I say, 
by this means know, in some manner, what God's perfections are, 
because they cannot but bear a proportion to his being. The 
author of the book called Ecclesiasticus, speaking of God's mercy, 
says, His mercy is as great as himself ; Eccl.ii.23. Nor are any 
of his other attributes less. So that his goodness, his mercy, his 
majesty, his meekness, his wisdom, his bounty, his omnipotence 
and his justice, are all entirely equal. Thus he is infinitely good, 
infinitely merciful, infinitely wise, infinitely amiable, and upon 
these considerations most infinitely worthy to be obeyed, respect- 
ed, reverenced and feared, by all creatures. Nay, were man's 
heart capable of an infinite love and fear, justice would obhge 
him to give it all to God, upon the account of his infinite great- 
ness. For, if, the greater quality a person is of, the more respect 
we are to show him, we ought to pay God an infinite respect. 



THE sinner's guide. 17 

because his dignity is infinite. Whatsoever, therefore, our love 
wants of acquiring this degree, is wanting upon no other account 
but our inabihty of making God the returns his boundless greatness 
deserves. 

11. Since, then, it is certain that, were there no other considera- 
tion but that alone, it would be a sufficient motive to obHge us to 
the love of God ; what can he be in love with, who does not love 
this goodness ? Or what can he be afraid of, w^ho does not fear 
this infinite majesty ? Whom will he serve, who \vill not serve 
this Lord? What was our will given us for, but to love and 
to embrace good ? If, therefore, this great God be the sovereign 
good, why does not our will embrace it before all other goods ? 
If it is an unhappiness and misery not to love him, nay, and that, 
too, above all things in the world, what should those persons ex- 
pect, who love every thing else better than they do him ? Who 
would ever have thought that man could carry his ingratitude 
and malice so far: and yet what do they less who are continu- 
ally offending this sovereign goodness, for a beastly pleasure, for 
a trifling punctilio of honor, or from some vile and sordid interest ? 
What, then, shall we think of them, who sin upon no motive at 
all, but either out of mere malice or custom, and without the 
least hope of advantage or profit ? Yet this pass mankind is now 
come to. O, unparalleled blindness and folly I O, insensibility, 
worse than that of brutes ! O, the diabolical rashness and impu- 
dence of man ! What punishment does he not deserve, that lets 
himself be carried away by such a crime as this ? What torments 
ought not he to expect, who has the boldness to despise so high a 
majesty ? Such an unhappy soul shall, without doubt, be con- 
demned to those pains and torments prepared for it ; to burn wdth 
the de^dls in hell for all eternity ; — a punishment far less than such 
offences deserve. 

12. This is the first and chiefest reason that obliges us to the 
love and service of God. An obligation so close and strict, that 
there is nothing in the world can oblige us to love the creatures, 
because of their perfections, which is to be called an obligation, 
if we compare it with this. For as the perfections of the crea- 
tures are but mere imperfections, in comparison vdth the perfec- 
tions of God; so all the obligations, that proceed from these 
perfections and excellences, cannot with any justice be called obli- 
gations, if you set them against those we owe to God : nor can 
the offences we commit against the creatures, be properly ac- 
counted such, if we but consider those w^e are guilty of towards 
God. This is the reason why David, in his Penitential Psalm, 
cries out. Against thee alone, meaning God, have I sinned ; Ps. 1. 
5. Though, at the same time, he had sinned against Urias, 
whom he murdered ; against Urias's wife, whom he seduced ; 
and against all his subjects, in the scandal his bad example gave 

3 b2 



18 THE sinner's guide. 

them ; and yet, after all, he declared he had sinned against God 
alone ; looking upon all those other offences as nothing at all, if 
compared with those he had committed against the law of God. 
This crime so afflicted him, that he took no notice of the rest. — 
For as God is infinitely greater than all the creatures; so the 
obligations we have to serve him, and the offences we commit 
against his divine majesty, are infinitely greater, too, there being 
no comparison nor proportion between finite and infinite. 



CHAPTER II. 

Of the second Motive that obliges us to Virtue, and the Service of 
God, which is the Benefit of our Creation. 

1. Another obligation we have in the pursuit of virtue and the 
keeping of God's commandments, besides his being in itself, is the 
consideration of what he is towards us, that is, of those innumera- 
ble favors we have received from him ; which, though we have 
spoken of elsewhere, upon other occasions, we will, nevertheless, 
treat of them again, that so we may the better understand how 
much we are obliged to this hberal Benefactor. 

2. The first of these benefits is our creation, which being so 
well known, I will only say, that such a favor is of itself sufficient 
to oblige man to give himself up entirely to the service of his 
Creator ; because in justice he stands indebted for all he has re- 
ceived ; and since by this benefit he has received his being, that 
is, his body with all its senses, and his soul with all its faculties, 
it follows he is obliged to employ them all in the service of his 
Creator, under the penalty of being looked on as ungrateful to so 
bountiful a Benefactor. For if a man builds a house, who should 
have the use or the rent of it, but he that built it ? If a man 
plants a vine, who else should have the fruit of it but the planter ? 
If a man has any children, who are they obliged to serve but the 
father that begot them ? This obligation is so strict, that the laws 
themselves give every father a right and power to sell his own 
children, if he should be reduced to a very pressing necessity. 
For his having given them their being, makes his authority over 
them so absolute, that he may dispose of them as he pleases. 
What power, then, and authority ought he to have, who is the 
sovereign Master and Author of all creatures both in heaven and 
on earth, since the power a father has over his children extends 
so far ? And if those persons who receive a favor, are, according 
to Seneca, obliged to imitate a good soil, which returns with 
interest what it receives, how shall we be able to make God any 
such return, when, after having given him all we have, we can 



THE sinner's guide. 19 

give him no more than what we have received from him ? And if 
he who gives back but just what he received, does not comply 
Avith this precept of the philosopher, what shall we say of him 
that does not return so much as the least part of it ? Aristotle 
tells us it is impossible for a man to make equal returns to the 
favors his father and the gods have bestowed on him. How, then, 
can it be possible for us to make any return to this great God, who 
is the Father of all fathers, and from whom mankind has received 
infinitely more than from all the fathers in the world together? 
If for a son to disobey his father is so heinous a sin, how grievous 
a crime must our rebellion be against God, who has so many 
titles to the name of Father, that, in comparison with him, no 
father deserves to be so called. And, therefore, he, with much 
reason, complains of this ingratitude by one of the prophets, in 
these words : If I am your Father, tohere is my honor ? And 
if I am your Lord, where is my fear ? Mai. i. 6. It is upon the 
account of the same ingratitude that he expresses his indignation 
in another place with much more severity and anger, saying. Is 
it thtcs that you requite the Lord, foolish and unwise nation ? 
Is not he thy Father, that has taken thee into his possession, and 
has made and created thee 7 Deut. xxxii. 6. These are truly the 
ungrateful creatures, that never lift up their eyes towards heaven 
to contemplate on it, nor look down to consider themselves. Did 
they but enter into this consideration, they w^ould soon inform 
themselves w^hat they are, and desire to have some knowledge at 
least of their original. They would be willing to know by whom 
and for what end they have been created, that they might by 
this means be acquainted with one part of their duty. But hav- 
ing already neglected the one, they easily neglect the other, and 
live as if they had made and created themselves. This was the 
crime of that unfortunate king of Egypt, whom God threatened 
so severely by his prophet, when he sent him this message : Be- 
hold, Pharaoh, Icing of Egypt, it is to thee that I speak, thou 
great dragon, that liest down in the midst of thy rivers, and say est, 
The river is mine, and I have made myself. These words, if 
they are not in the mouths, are at least in the hearts of those who 
think as seldom of their Creator as if they themselves were the 
authors of their own being, and would acknowledge no other. 
St. Augustine's sentiments were quite different from these; for 
the knowledge of his own ori™ brought him to the knowledge of 
him from whom he had received it. Hear how he speaks in one 
of his soliloquies : " I returned to myself, and entered into myself, 
saying. What art thou ? And I answered myself, A rational and 
a mortal man. And I began to examine what this was, and said, 
O, my Lord and my God, who is it that has created so noble a 
creature as this is ? Who, O Lord, but thou ? Thou, O my God, 
hast made me, and not I myself. What art thou ? Thou by whom 



20 THE sinner's guide. 

I and all things live. Can any one create and make himself? 
Can he receive his being and his life from any one else but from 
thee? Art not thou the chief being, from whom every other 
being comes ? Art not thou the fountain of life, from which all 
lives flow ? For whatsoever has life lives by thee, because nothing 
can live without thee. It is thou, O Lord, that hast made me, 
and without thee nothing is made. Thou art my Creator, and I 
am thy creature. I thani: thee, O my Lord and my God, because 
thou hast created me ; thou, by whom I live, and by whom all 
things live. I thank thee, O my Creator, because thy hands have 
made and fashioned me. I thank thee, O my Light, for having 
enhghtened and brought me to the knowledge of what thou art, 
and what I am myself." 

This is the first favor we have received from God, and the 
foundation of all the rest, because all other benefits presuppose 
a being, and this is first given us at our creation. Nay, there is 
no benefit but has a near relation to our being, as the accidents 
of a thing have to the substance of it ; by which you may see 
how great a benefit this is, and how deeply you are indebted to 
God for it. If, then, it is certain, that God is very careful and 
exact in requiring some acknowledgment for all the benefits he 
bestows upon us, not out of any interest or advantage to himself, 
but only for our good; what acknowledgment do we think he 
will expect from us, for that favor, upon which all others are 
built ? For God is no less rigorous in exacting our thanks, than 
he is liberal in conferring his grace ; not that he gets any thing 
by it, but because the performance of our duty is so very advan- 
tageous to us. Thus we read in the Old Testament, that God 
no sooner bestowed any grace upon his people, than he com- 
manded them not to forget the same. As soon as he had brought 
his Israelites out of the slavery of Egypt (Exod. xii.), he imme- 
diately commanded them to keep a solemn feast every year, in 
remembrance of that happy day. He destroyed all the first-born 
of the Egyptians, but, at the same time, to prevent his people's 
ingratitude, he gave orders, that in return for so signal a favor, 
they should offer up all their first-born to him. A little after 
their departure from Egypt (Exod. xvi. 33), when he first rained 
down the manna from heaven, a food with which he maintained 
them for forty years in the wilderness, he ordered immediately 
that a certain quantity of it should be put into a vessel, and kept 
in the sanctuary, as a memorial to all their posterity of so extra- 
ordinary a mercy ; Exod. xvii. 14. After the victory which he 
gave them over the Amalekites, he bids Moses write it down in a 
book for a memorial, and deliver the same to Josue. Now, if God 
has been so exact, in requiring that his people should never forget 
those temporal favors he has done them, what will he not expect 
from us, for this immortal one ? For since the soul he has given 



THE sinner's guide. 21 

US is immortal, the benefit we receive with it must be so too. It 
was this that introduced the custom amongst the old patriarchs, 
of erecting altars, as often as God had favored them in any par- 
ticular manner ; Gen. xiii. 7, 8 ; xiii. 18 ; xxii. &c. Nay, the very 
names they gave their children expressed the favors they had re- 
ceived, that so they might always be mindful of them. Hence St. 
Augustine took occasion to say that man ought to think of God 
every time he draws his breath ; Soliloq. c. 18. Manuale c. 29. 
Medit. c. 6. Because, as it is by the means of his being that he 
lives, he should be continually giving God thanks for this immortal 
being, which he has had from the divine mercy. 

We are so strictly obliged to the performance of this duty, that 
it is the advice even of worldly philosophers never to be migrate- 
ful to God. Hear how Epictetus, a very noted Stoic, speaks upon 
this matter. " Have a care," says he, " O man, of being ungrate- 
ful to that sovereign Power, and forgetting to return thanks, not 
only for having given you all your senses and life itself, but for all 
those things that support it : not only for the pleasant fruits, for 
the wine, the oil, and for whatever other advantages of fortune 
you have received from him ; but praise him particularly for having 
endowed you with reason, by which you may know how to make 
that use of every thing which it ought to be put to, and under- 
stand the true worth and excellence of all things." If a heathen 
philosopher obliges us to such acknowledgments for these common 
and ordinary things, what sentiments of gratitude should a Chris- 
tian have, who has, beside all these, received the light of faith, 
which is a most inestimable favor. 

5. But you will perhaps ask. What obligations can these bene- 
fits lay upon me, which are common to all, and seem rather to be 
the ordinary graces of God, since they are nothing but the con- 
sequences and products of such causes as work always after the 
same manner? This objection is so much belaw a Christian, that 
a heathen would be ashamed to make it, and none but a beast can 
be guilty of such baseness. That you may the more easily believe 
me, hear how the same philosopher condemns it : " You will say, 
perhaps, that you receive all these benefits from nature. Sense- 
less and ignorant, creature that you are ! do not you see, that 
w^hen you say so, you only change the name of God ? For what 
is nature but God, who is the Author of nature? It is therefore 
no excuse, ungrateful man, to say you owe this obligation to 
nature, not to God, because without God there is no such thing 
as nature. Should you borrow a sum of money of Lucius Seneca, 
and afterwards say you were obliged only to Lucius, and not to 
Seneca, that would only change your creditor's name, but not your 
creditor." 



22 THE SINNER'S GUIDE. 

§ I. Of another Part of this Motive that obliges us to the Service 
of God, which is, that we are to receive our Perfection from 
him. 

6. It is not justice alone that obliges to the service of our 
Creator: our own necessities force us to address ourselves to 
him, if we desire to arrive at the happiness and perfection of our 
being, which is the end of our creation. For the better under- 
standing hereof, you must conceive that, generally speaking, 
w^hatever is born is not born with all its perfections : it has some- 
thing, but it wants much more yet, and none but he that began 
the work can rightly finish it. So that no being can be perfected 
by any other cause than that which put the first hand to it. 
This is the reason why all effects have an inclination and ten- 
dency towards those particular causes which produced them, 
that they may receive their last stroke and perfection from them. 
The plants love the sun, and run as deep as they can into the earth 
which shot them forth. The fishes continue in the waters w^here 
they were first engendered. A chicken runs under the hen's 
wings as soon as it is hatched, and follows her up and down for 
shelter. A lamb, as soon as it is brought forth, runs after its 
ewe, and can distinguish it from a thousand others of the same 
color. It follows her without ever losing sight of her, and seems 
to say, " Here it is I received whatsoever I have, and it is here I 
will receive whatsoever I want." This is what usually happens 
in the works of nature ; and if those of art had any sense or mo- 
tion, they would do the same. Should a painter draw a piece 
and leave out the eyes, what would it do were it sensible of its 
wants ? whither would it go ? Not to the palaces of kings or 
princes, who, as such, could never be able to supply its defects, 
but to the master's house, that he who drew the first strokes 
might give the last, and finish it quite. Is not this your own 
case, O rational creature ? You are not yet finished. You have, 
it is true, received something, but there is a great deal yet want- 
ing to make you as complete and perfect as you should be. You 
are scarce any more than a rough draught. You have received 
nothing of the beauty and lustre you are to haye. This you will 
be very sensible of, if you do but observe the propension of nature 
itself, which, being always in want, never rests, but is continually 
craving and wishing for more. God thought fit to starve you 
out, that your own wants might force you to have recourse to 
him. For this reason it was he left you at first unfinished. His 
not giving you at your creation all that you stood in need of, 
was an effect not of covetousness, but of love. It was not to 
leave you poor, but to make you humble. It was not to forsake 
you in your necessities, but to obhge you to address yourself to 
him. For since you are really poor and Wind, why do you not 



THE sinner's guide. 23 

go to the Father that made you, and to the painter that first began 
to draw you, that he may give you what you have not yet received ? 
Consider whether David did not understand this secret, when he 
said. Thy hands, Lord I have made me, and formed me : give 
me understanding, and I will learn thy commandments ; Ps. cxviii. 
73. As if he had said, all that is in me is the work of thy hands, 

Lord! but thy work is not yet completed. I am not quite 
finished, O Lord, because the eyes of my soul are not yet opened. 

1 have not light enough to see what is convenient for me. Whom 
shall I have recourse to for the obtaining what I want, unless to 
him who has given me what I have ? Grant me, O Lord ! that 
light which is necessary for me. Enlighten the eyes of this wretch 
that has been born blind, that he may see thee, and that thou, O 
God ! may est finish what thou hast already begun in me. 

7. As, therefore, there is none but this great God that can perfect 
the understanding, so neither is there any beside him, that can com- 
plete and rectify the will, with all the other faculties of the soul ; 
that so he who first began the work, may finish it. It is this I^ord 
alone, who satisfies without leaving any want, who enlarges with- 
out noise, who enriches without vanity, and gives a sohd content- 
ment, without possessing many things : with whom the creature 
lives, though poor, yet content ; though rich, yet destitute ; though 
alone, yet happy ; though deprived of all things, yet possessing all. 
It is upon this occasion the wdse man says, with so much reason. 
One is as it were rich, when he hath nothing ; and another is as it 
were poor, though he hath great riches ; Prov. xiii. 7. By this we 
are taught that the poor man, who has God for his inheritance, as 
St. Francis had, is truly rich, and that he whom God takes no no- 
tice of is very poor, let him be ever so rich in worldly possessions. 

What advantage have great and wealthy men by all their riches, 
if they are, nevertheless, racked with such cares and diseases, that 
all they have cannot give them any ease ? Or w^hat comfort can 
rich clothes, a plentiful table, and chests crammed with gold and 
treasures, bring to an unquiet and troubled mind ? How often, and 
with w^hat restlessness, does the rich man turn and toss about every 
night in his down-bed ; nor can all his w^ealth help him to the least 
w^nk of sleep, or give any rest to his disturbed conscience ? It fol- 
lows, from what has been said, that we are infinitely obliged to serve 
God, not only on account of his benefits, but for whatsoever else 
contributes to the making our happiness complete. 



24 THE sinner's guide. 



CHAPTER III. 

Of the third Motive that obliges us to serve God, which is the 
Benefit of our Preservation and Direction. 

1. Another obligation man has to God, besides that of his 
creation, is the care he takes to preserve him. He it is who gave 
you your being, and who still continues the same to you. So 
that you depend now as much upon his power, for the preserving 
of it, as you did, before he gave it to you, for the receiving it ; 
and it is as impossible for you to subsist without him, as it was, 
before you were created, to create yourself. Nor is the second 
obhgation less than the first, but rather greater, for that was laid 
upon you but once ; whereas this is conferred on you every mo- 
ment of your life. For to be continually preserving you, after 
your creation, requires no less love nor power than it did to create 
you. If, therefore, your obligation to him, for having created 
you in an instant, be so great ; what do you not owe him for pre-^ 
serving you so many moments, so many hours, nay, so many 
years ? You cannot go a step unless he gives you power to move. 
You cannot so much as open or shut your eyes vdthout his will 
and assistance. For if you do not believe that it is he who moves 
every joint and member of your body, you are no Christian ; but 
if you believe it is from him you receive this favor, and yet, after 
all, are so impudent as to offend him, I cannot tell what name to 
give you. If a man were standing on the top of a high tower, 
w^ith a small cord in his hand, and another man hanging at the 
end of it, do you think that he who should be so near falUng 
down headlong, w^ould dare to give abusive language to the per-. 
son that held the cord? Imagine yourself to be in such a con- 
dition. You depend on the will of God as it were on a thread ; 
so that, should he forsake you but for one moment, you would be 
instantly reduced to your first nothing. With what insolence, 
then, can you dare provoke so dreadful a Majesty, who is so mer- 
ciful as to support you, even when you sin against Him? For, 
as St. Denis says, such is the virtue of the sovereign Good, as to 
give creatures power to disobey and rebel at the very moment 
they are rebelling against it. Since there is no denying this 
truth, how dare you presume to make use of those senses and 
members, as instruments to offend him who preserves them? 
O incredible blindness and folly ! O unheard-of rebellion and dis- 
obedience ! Was there ever so horrid a conspiracy as this is, that 
the members should rise up against their Head, for which they 
ought to die a thousand times ? The day will come when this 
affront shall be most severely punished. It is then that God will 
hear those complahits, which his own honor, trampled under foot 



THE sinner's guide. 25 

by you, shall make to his divine justice. Disloyal and ungrateful 
man I is it not just, since you have conspired against your God, 
that the whole world should rise up and exclaim against you? 
that God should arm all his creatures to revenge the injuries you 
have offered him ? and that the whole earth should fight for him 
against the ungrateful ? Without doubt, there is no greater justice 
than that they, who would not open their eyes to so many mer- 
cies, when they might have done it, should be forced to it now by 
severity and rigor, without finding any remedy or comfort. 

2. K to all these benefits we add the whole world, which is as 
a rich and plentiful table God has prepared and spread for your 
particular use, how infinitely will the obligation be increased? 
There is not any one thing under the face of heaven, but what is 
entirely for man, or for his ser^vice. And should any one object, 
that flies are of no use to man, he may observe, they are food for 
birds, which are created for him. Though a man does not eat 
the grass of the fields, it nourishes the cattle which are necessary 
for his subsistence. Cast your eye about the world, and you will 
see what rich lands, and what large possessions you have, and 
how great your inheritance is. All that moves on the earth, all 
that swims in the waters, that flies in the air, or that shines in the 
heavens, is made for you. These things are all of them the 
effects of God's bounty, the witnesses of his mercy, the sparks of 
his charity, and the common publishers of his greatness. Con- 
sider these are so many preachers God sends to you, that you 
may not want the opportunity of knowing him. Every thing, 
says St. Augustine, on earth and in heaven, perpetually exhorts 
me, O Lord I to love you. And that no man may pretend to a 
lawful excuse from so just a duty, they speak the same language 
to every body else. 

3.0! that you had but ears to hear the voices of the creatures, 
you would easily imderstand how they all agree in their inviting 
you to the love of God ; for they silently declare they have been 
created to serve you : that you may, therefore, love and adore this 
common Lord, not only for yourself, but for them. The sky says, 
It is I, that by my stars continually furnish you with light, that 
you may not walk in the dark. It is I, that by my different in- 
fluences occasion the production of all things necessary for life. 
The air, on the other side, tells you, It is I who give you 
breath ; it is I who refresh you with my gentle blasts, and tem- 
per the heat of your vital spirits, that you may not be scorched 
up by it; it is I who maintain this almost infinite number of 
different kinds of birds, pleasing your eyes with the beauty of 
their feathers, charming your ears with the sweetness of their 
notes, and satisfying the niceness of your appetites with their 
delicious taste. The water says. It is for you that I pour out 
my seasonable and moderate rains ; it is for you that my streams 
4 C 



26 THE sinner's guide. 

and fountains are always running ; it is for your nourishment 
that I engender such variety of fish. I water your lands and 
your gardens, that they may bring you their fruits in due season. 
I make a short passage for you through the sea, that you may 
thereby have the opportunity of making use of the whole world, 
and of joining the riches of other countries with those of your 
own. What shall I say of the earth, the common mother of all 
things, and the universal shop, as it were, of nature ; where all 
the different causes produce their several effects ? She may, with 
a great deal of reason, speak to you, as the rest have done, and 
tell you, it is she that, like a mother, carries you in her arms ; 
it is she supplies you with all the necessaries of life; it is 
she that maintains you with the variety of her products ; that, to 
serve you, she holds a correspondence with all the other ele- 
ments, and with the heavens themselves, for the procuring of 
their influence; and that she, in short, like a tender mother, 
neither forsakes you whilst you are alive, nor leaves you at your 
death ; for she it is that nourishes and supports you during your 
life, and takes you into her bosom when you are dead, and there 
gives you a resting-place. To conclude, all the world cries out 
aloud to you. Behold, O mortal man, and consider, what a love 
your Creator has had for you ; since it is for your sake that he 
has made me, commanding me, at the same time, for the love of 
him, to serve you ; that so you may love and serve him, who has 
created me for you, and you for himself. 

4. This, O Christian, this is the general voice of all the crea- 
tures ; and can you, after this, deny, that you are most strangely 
dull and stupid, if you have no ears to hear the same ? How can 
you avoid confessing, that you are guilty of an unparalleled in- 
gratitude, if you take no notice of so many favors ? If you are 
not ashamed to receive an obligation, why do you refuse to make 
a simple acknowledgment of it to him from whom you have re- 
ceived it, that so you may escape the punishment your ingratitude 
otherwise deserves ? For, according to a great writer, there is no 
creature in the world but what speaks these three words to man : 
" Receive, give, take heed ; that is to say, receive the benefit, give 
what is due, and take heed of the punishment which follows in- 
gratitude, if you do not do so ;" Rich, de S. Vict. 

5. And, that you may have more cause to admire, consider how 
Epictetus, a heathen philosopher before mentioned, has been able 
to lift himself up to this sublime divinity. He advises us, in these 
words, to make the creatures serve us, as so many memorials of 
the Creator : — 

" When the raven croaks," says he, " and thereby gives you 
notice of some change of weather, it is God, not the raven, that 
gives you this notice. If men should, by their words and dis- 
courses, advise you to any thing, is it not God that has given 



THE sinner's guide. 27 

them power to advise you thus? thereby to let you understand, 
that he exercises his divine pov^^er several ways, in order to bring 
about his designs ; for when God thinks fit to acquaint us with 
matters of greater moment, he makes choice of more excellent and 
more inspired men for this purpose." Afterwards, he adds this : 
" In fine, when you shall have read my instructions, say to your- 
self. Is it not Epictetus, but God, that has given me this advice ; 
for whence could he have had such precepts and rules as these are, 
if God had not suggested them to him ?" Thus far the words of 
Epictetus. Now, is there any Christian in the world, that will 
not be ashamed, and blush to be excelled by a heathen ? If there 
be, he may well be confounded to think, that his eyes, with the 
assistance of the light of faith, cannot see as far as those that were 
in the darkness of human reason. 

§ I. From what has been said is inferred how unworthy it is not 

to serve God, 

6. Since things are really just as we have represented them, 
is it not great ingratitude and neglect for man to be surrounded 
on all sides by so many benefits, and yet to forget him from 
whom he has received them all ? St. Paul says, that he who does 
his enemy a good turn, heaps coals of fire upon his head (Rom. 
xii. 20.), by which he inflames his charity and love. Now^, if all 
the creatures in the world are so many benefits God bestows on 
you, the whole world can be nothing else but one fire, and all 
the creatures so much fuel to feed and increase it. Is it possible 
any heart should be in the midst of such flames as these, and not 
be entirely inflamed, or so much as warmed by them? How 
comes it then, that after receiving so many benefits and graces, 
you should neglect even to cast your eyes towards heaven, to see 
from whence they all come ? If you were to go a great journey, 
and in the way, being quite tired, and almost dead with hunger, 
should be forced to sit down at the bottom of a high tower, from 
the top of which some charitable person should take care to sup- 
ply you with whatsoever you wanted, could you forbear looking 
up sometimes, if it were but to have a sight of one that was so 
kind and charitable to you? Does God do any thing less for you, 
than continually shower down from above all sorts of blessings 
upon you ? Find me out, if you can, but one thing in the world, 
that does not happen by his particular providence. And yet you 
never so much as look up to know, and by that means to love, so 
liberal and constant a Benefactor. What can be said of such 
hard-heartedness, but that man has divested himself of his own 
nature, and is grown more insensible than brutes ? It is a shame 
to say whom we resemble in this particular, but it is fit that man 
should hear it. We are like a herd of swine feeding under an 



3§ THE sinner's guide* 

oak, which, all the time their keeper is shaking down the acorns 
from the top of the tree, do nothing else but grunt and fight with 
one another for their meat, without ever looking upon him that 
gives it them, or lifting up their eyes to see from whose hands 
they receive such a benefit. O! the brutal ingratitude of the 
children of Adam ! who, having received not only a rational soul, 
which other creatures have not, but also an upright body, and 
eyes set to look up towards heaven, yet will not lift up the eyes 
of the soul to behold him that bestows such blessings on them. 

7. It is to be wished, that brutes and irrational creatures did 
not excel us in this point. For this duty of acknowledgment is, 
in effect, so deeply engraved by the finger of God upon all his 
creatures, that the fiercest of them have not been deprived of so 
noble an inclination. There are a great many examples in his- 
tory to prove what we here assert. Is there any beast more 
fierce than a lion ? and yet Appian, a Greek author, tells us of 
a man who, having accidentally sheltered himself in a lion's 
cave, and there plucked a thorn out of one of his feet, shared 
■with him every day of the prey he got, as an acknowledgment 
of the favor and the cure he had wrought upon the beast. Tliis 
man was taken up a considerable time after for some notorious 
crime, and was condemned to be exposed to the wild beasts in 
the amphitheatre at Rome, to be torn in pieces by them. The 
same lion, which had been taken some days before, being let 
loose, eyed the man, and, knowing him, came up gently and 
fawned upon him, just as a dog does upon his master when he 
has been abroad, and ever after followed him up and down with- 
out doing any harm. We read of another lion, who, having 
received the same favor from a seaman, that had been cast by 
a storm upon the coast of Africa, brought him daily a part of 
his booty, which maintained him and his company until such 
time as they put to sea again. Nor is that less to be admired, 
when they tell us of another, who, as he was fighting with a ser- 
pent, was so put to it, that in all appearance he would have lost 
his life, had not a gentleman, who was riding that way, accident- 
ally come to his assistance, and killed the serpent ; the hon, to 
return the obligation, gave himself up entirely to his deliverer, 
and followed him whithersoever he went, serving him as a hound 
in hunting. The gentleman at last took shipping, and left his 
hon on shore. The beast was so impatient and uneasy to stay 
behind, that he took to the water, and, not being able to make 
to the vessel, was drowned. What shall I say of the gratitude 
and fidelity of horses? Pliny gives us a relation of some, that 
have had such a lively concern for the loss of their masters, as to 
shed tears for them ; and of others, that have starved themselves 
to death for the same reason. Some there are, again, that have 
revenged their masters' death upon those that murdered them 



THE sinner's guide. 29 

by tearing them in pieces, or by trampling them under their feet. 
Nor is the gratitude of dogs less surprising, of whom the same 
author relates such strange things as are almost incredible. 
Amongst the rest he tells us of one, that, having fought for his 
master, who was murdered by highwaymen, as long as he was 
able, sat by the dead body to keep off the birds and beasts from 
devouring it. He speaks of another, that would neither eat nor 
drink after he had seen his master, Lucius, dead. He relates 
another much more remarkable passage, that happened at Rome 
in his time, which is this: A man, that was condemned to die, 
had a dog which he had kept very long, and which never left 
him all the time he was in prison, no, nor after his execution ; 
but, on the contrary, staying always by him, made known his 
grief by his howling. If any body flung him a piece of bread, 
he would take it up, and carry it immediately to his master, and 
put it into his mouth. At last, the body being thrown into the 
Tiber, the dog leaped in, and got under it, to keep it from sink- 
ing. Can there be any thing in the world more grateful than 
this was ? Now, if beasts, who have only a small spark of natu- 
ral instinct, whereby to acknowledge a good turn, are yet so 
ready to requite, serve and attend their benefactors, how can 
man, who has so much more light to know the good he receives, 
be so forgetful of him that bestows so much upon him ? How 
comes he to suffer himself to be exceeded by beasts, in courtesy, 
fidelity and gratitude ? Especially, when the benefits, which man 
receives from God, are so infinitely beyond those which beasts 
receive from men ; when the Benefactor is so excellent, his love 
so singular, and his intention so sincere, that he proposes no 
interest to himself, but does all out of mere charity and bounty. 
This is, indeed, a matter of no small wonder and astonishment, 
and evidently shows there are devils, that blind our understandings, 
harden our hearts, and impair our memories, that we may not re- 
member so liberal a Benefactor. 

8. Now, if it be so great a crime to forget this Lor(J„, what 
must it be to affront him, and to convert his favors into tjje^in- 
strmnents of our offences against him? Seneca sa^ys^ tJiia^^ not 
to pay back the benefits we have received, is the first ' degree 
of ingratitude ; the second is to forget them ; the third is - to 
render evil for good ; and this last is the highest degree. But 
what is all this to the affronting and abusing your Benefactor 
with those very kindnesses he has shown to you? I doubt whether 
there is any man in the world, who has ever dealt wdth his fellow 
creatures, as we frequently deal with God. What man would 
be so ungrateful, as to go immediately, and employ a considera- 
ble sum of money he had received from his prince, in i:aising an 
army against him ? And yet you, base and miserable wtetch ! 
never cease to make war upon God, with those very bounties 

c2 



30 THE sinner's guide. 

you have received from him. What can a man think more abom- 
inable than this ? Should a husband make a present to his wife 
of a necklace of pearl, or a rich set of diamonds, to oblige her 
to honor and love him the more ; what would you say of the 
perfidiousness of this woman, if she should throw all away im- 
mediately upon her gallant, to tie him the more strongly to her, 
and make herself more the mistress of his affection ? Every body 
would certainly look upon this as the basest action she could be 
guilty of; and yet the offence here is only between equals. How 
much more heinous, then, is the crime, when the affront is offer- 
ed to God ? And yet this it is those persons are guilty of, who 
waste all their strength, and spend their estates, and ruin their 
health, in committing sinful actions. Their strength makes them 
proud, their beauty makes them conceited, and their health 
unmindful of God. Their wealth enables them to devour the 
poor, to vie with the great ones, to pamper their flesh, and to 
corrupt the virtue of some unthinking maid, making her, like 
Judas, sell what Christ purchased by his blood, whilst they buy 
it with money like the Jews. What shall I say of the abuse of 
other graces ? The sea serves but to satisfy their gluttony, and 
the beauty of creatures their lust. The fruits and product of the 
earth serve to feed their avarice, and their wit and natural gifts go 
to the increasing of their vanity. They are puffed up in prosperity, 
even to folly, and cast down to despair in adversity. They choose 
the darkness of the night to hide their theft, and the Hght of the day 
for the laying of snares, as we read in holy Job. In short, what- 
ever God has created for his own glory, they have devoted to 
satisfy their inordinate passions. 

9. What shall I say of their essences and perfumes, of their 
stately furniture, their sumptuous tables, and niceness and super- 
fluity of their dishes, with their different sorts of sauces, and 
their several ways of cooking ? Nay, sensuality and luxury are 
so much in fashion, that men have made a trade of these scan- 
dalous excesses, and published books to instruct us how to sin in 
this matter. They have corrupted all things by their misusing 
them, and, instead of taking an occasion from them to praise 
God, the end they were given them for, they have made use of 
them as the incentives to their debaucheries and vanities; thus 
perverting the lawful use of the creatures, they have made those 
things help and assist them in vice, which ought to have encour- 
aged and excited them to virtue. There is nothing, in fine, 
which they have not sacrificed to the gratifying of their senses, 
and the pampering of their flesh, whilst they have quite neglected 
to reheve their neighbour, though God has so particularly recom- 
mended him to their care. They never complain that they are 
poor, but to those that are so themselves ; nor do they ever so 
much as think of paying their debts, imless when any body comes 



THE sinner's guide. 31 

to beg an alms of them ; take them at any other time, and you 
shall neither find them poor nor in debt. 

10. Have a care this be not laid to your charge at the hour 
of your death. Do not suffer so heavy a burden as this, to be 
pressing upon you at that time. Consider that the greater the 
concern is, the more strict account you must give of it. To have 
received much, and to have made but small acknowledgment of it, 
is a kind of judgment laid upon you already. It is a great sign 
of a man's reprobation, when he continues to abuse those favors 
God Almighty bestows on him. Let us look upon it as the utmost 
disgrace, that beasts should surpass us in this virtue ; since they 
requite their benefactors with gratitude, whilst we neglect to do it. 
K the Ninevites are to rise up in judgment against the Jews, and 
condemn them for not entering into a state of penance after our 
Saviour's preaching, let us take care that the same Lord have no 
reason, at the last day, to condemn us upon the examples of beasts, 
for taking so httle notice of our Benefactor, when they have 
expressed much love to theirs. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Of the, fourth Motive that obliges tis to the Pursuit of Virtue, 
which is the inestimable Benefit of our Redemption. 

1. Let us come now to the great work of our redemption, a 
favor not to be comprehended by either men or angels. A mys- 
tery so much above whatsoever I am able to say, and myself so 
unworthy at the same time to speak any thing of it, that I neither 
know where to begin or where to leave off, w^hat to take or 
what to leave. Were not man so stupid as to stand in need of 
these incentives, to stir him up to the love of virtue, it would be 
much better to adore this profound mystery in silence, than to 
eclipse it by the darkness of our expression. They tell us of a 
certain famous painter, who, having drawn a picture represent- 
ing the death of a king's daughter, and painted her friends and 
relations standing about her wdth most sorrowful countenances, 
and her mother more melancholy than the rest ; when he came 
to draw the father's face, he hid it under a shade, to signify that 
so much grief was not to be expressed by art. Now if all we 
are able to say falls short of explaining the benefit of our crea- 
tion, what eloquence ^vill suffice deservedly to extol that of our 
redemption ? God created the whole universe by one single act 
of his will, without spending the least part of his treasures, or 
weakening the strength of his almighty arm. But to the re- 
deeming of it, there went no less than thirty-three years of sweat 



2^ THE sinner's guide. 

and toil, with the effusion of his blood to the very last drop, and 
not one of his senses or members was exempt from suffering its 
particular pain and anguish. It looks like a lessening of such 
sublime mysteries, to attempt to explain them with mortal tongue. 
What shall I do then ? shall I speak, or shall I hold my peace ? 
I am obliged not to be silent, and am unfit to speak. How can 
I be silent of such wondrous effects of God's mercy ? And how 
shall I be able to discourse of such ineffable mysteries ? To be 
silent looks like ingratitude, and to speak of it seems a rashness. 
Wherefore, I here prostrate myself before thee, O my God, im- 
ploring thy divine assistance and mercy to the end, that whilst 
my ignorance detracts from thy glory, instead of extolling and 
displaying it, those who are capable of doing it may praise and 
glorify thee in heaven, that they may supply what I am deficient 
in, and beautify and adorn what a mortal man cannot but spoil by 
the meanness of his capacity. > 

2. After God had created man, and with his own hand seated 
him in a place of delights, investing him with honor and glory, 
that which ought to have engaged him the more deeply in his 
Creator's service emboldened him Ihe more to rebel against him. 
Whereas, the infinite favors he had received should have laid a 
stricter obligation on him, to love that divine Goodness that be- 
stowed them, he made use of them as instruments of his ingrati- 
tude. This was the cause of his being driven out of Paradise, 
into the banishment of this world, and condemned to the pains 
of hell, that, as he had been the devil's associate in sin, he 
might partake of his sufferings and torments. When Giezi, 
Elisha's servant, had received the present which Naaman the 
leper made him, the prophet said to him: Since thou hast re- 
ceived JYaaman's money, the leprosy, therefore, of JYaaman shall 
cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever ; 4 Kings v. 26, 27. 
God has pronounced a like sentence against man, judging it 
requisite, that since he has coveted the riches of Lucifer, which 
are his guilt and his pride, he should in like manner be defiled 
with Lucifer's leprosy, which is the punishment of his rebellion. 
Thus man, by imitating the devils' sins, becomes hke them, 
and shares with them in their punishment, as well as in their 
guilt. 

3. Man having brought such a disgrace upon himself, this 
same God, whose mercy is as great as his majesty, considered 
not the affront, which was offered to his infinite goodness, so 
much as he did our misery. He was more concerned for the un- 
happy condition we were reduced to, than angry for the offences 
we had committed against him; and, therefore, resolved to 
succor us by the means of his only Son, and to make him the 
Mediator of our reconciliation with himself. But what was this 
reconciliation ? Who is able to express this mercy ? He settled 



THE sinner's guide. 33 

such a close friendship betwixt God and man, as to find out a 
way to make God not only pardon man, receive him into his 
favor again, and make him one and the same thing with himself, 
by love, but what is far beyond all expression, he united him to 
himself in such a manner, that there are no created beings in 
nature so closely united as these two are now ; because they are 
not only one in love and in grace, but in person too. Who 
could ever have thought, that such a breach as this, would have 
been so made up again? Who could have imagined, that these 
two things, which nature and sin had set at such a distance, 
should ever have been united together, not in the same house, at 
the same table, in the same union of grace and love, but in the 
same person ? Are there any two things in the world more dif- 
ferent from one another, than God and a sinner? And yet, are 
there any things more closely united than God and man are now ? 
There is nothing, says St. Bernard, more high than God, and 
nothing lower than the clay man was made of. Y^t has God, 
with so much humility, descended into this clay, and this clay 
with so much honour ascended to God, that we may say the clay 
has done whatsoever God has done, and God has suffered all the 
clay has suffered. 

4. When man, finding himself naked, and become an enemy 
to God, endeavoured to hide himself in the most concealed parts 
of the terrestrial paradise, who would have made him believe a 
time would come, when this base and vile substance should be 
united to God, in one and the same person ? This alliance w^as 
so strict and close, that it could not be separated even by death, 
which broke the union between soul and body, but could never 
divide the divinity and humanity, because God never quitted what 
he had once taken upon him for our sake. 

Thus our peace was concluded ; this is the medicine we have 
received at the hands of our Saviour and Mediator. And though 
we are infinitely more indebted to God for so sovereign a cure, 
than we are in any wise able to express, we are no less obliged to 
him for the manner of applying it, than for the remedy itself. I 
am infinitely indebted to thee, O my God, for having redeemed 
me from hell, and restored me to thy favour; but I owe thee 
much more for the manner of restoring my liberty, than for the 
liberty itself. All thy works, O Lord, are to be admired in every 
part of them ; and though man may seem to lose himself in the 
contemplation of any one of thy wonders, the same disappears, 
as soon as he lifts up his eyes towards heaven to reflect upon 
another. Nor is this any discredit to thy greatness, O Lord, but 
an argument of thy glory. 

What course, O my God, hast thou taken to heal me ? Thou 
mightest have procured me my salvation by an infinite number 
of ways, without putting thyself to the trouble or expense ; but 
5 



34 ' THE sinner's guide. 

thy bounty was so great and surprising, that to give me a more 
manifest proof of thy goodness and mercy, thou hast chosen to 
reheve my miseries by thy own pains and sufferings, which were 
so vehement, that the very thoughts of them drew a bloody 
sweat from thy veins, and thy undergoing of them rent the very 
rocks with sorrow. Let the heavens and the angels praise thee, 
O my God, for ever ; and let them never cease to pubhsh thy 
wondrous works ! What need hadst thou of our goods, or what 
damage were our miseries to thee ? If thou shouldst sin, says Elihu 
to Job, what hurt wilt thou do to God? And if thy transgres- 
sions should he multiplied, what wilt thou do against him ? On 
the contrary, if thou shall do that which is just, what wilt thou 
give him, or what can he receive from thy hand? Job xxxv. 6,7. 
This great God, who is so powerful, and so far above the reach 
of any misfortune ; he, whose riches, whose power and whose 
wisdom can neither be increased nor lessened; he, who was 
neither greater nor less after he had created the world than he 
was before ; he, who can receive no more glory from all the 
praises men and angels are able to give him, than he has always 
had from all eternity ; he, who would be no less glorious, though 
each particular mouth were to be employed in cursing and blas- 
pheming him ; this Lord, I say, whose majesty is so great and 
infinite, notwithstanding our infidelities and treacheries have 
been such as deserve his eternal anger and hatred, has vouch- 
safed, even when he had no need at all of us, and upon no 
other motive but that of his excessive love to us, to bow down 
the heavens of his greatness, and to descend into this place of 
banishment, to clothe himself with our flesh, to undertake the 
payment of our debts, and, that he might discharge us, to under- 
go the most dreadful torments that ever were, or that ever shall 
be undergone ! It was for my sake, O my God, that thou hast 
been born in a stable, laid in a manger, circumcised the eighth 
day, and forced to fly into Egypt ; it was for the love of me, that 
thou hast been so affronted and injured; it was for me that 
thou hast fasted, watched and wandered from place to place; 
that thou hast sweated, wept and subjected thyself to all those 
miseries which my sins have deserved, notwithstanding that thou 
wert so far from being the offender, as to be all this while the party 
offended ; it was for me that thou wert apprehended, forsaken, 
sold, denied, and brought before several courts and judges ; it was 
for my sake that thou wert accused before them, and that thou 
wert affronted, buffeted, spit upon, whipped, blasphemed, put to 
death and buried. Thou hast, in fine, vouchsafed for the healing 
of my wounds, to die upon a cross, in the sight of thy most holy 
mother, in so great poverty, as not to have one drop of water at 
the hour of thy death, and in so stupendous a manner forsaken by 
all, that thy heavenly Father himself seemed to neglect thee at that 



THE sinner's guide. 35 

time. Can any thing enter into the heart of man more lamentable 
than this, to see a God of most infinite majesty come down upon 
earth to end his Hfe upon a cross, like a notorious malefactor ? 

6. If any man, though of ever so mean a condition, were to 
be executed for some public crime he had committed, there is 
no body could, without some kind of concern, especially if he 
had known him before, consider the deplorable state his mis- 
ery had reduced him to, and the unhappy end he was going to 
make. Now if it be surprising to see a man of but an ordinary 
condition brought to such disgrace, how ought we to be aston- 
ished, when we see the Lord of all created things in no better 
circumstances ? What a subject of wonder should it be, to see a 
God like a malefactor ? and if it be true, that the greater the 
quality a person is of, the more we are surprised at lus disgrace 
and fall, what surprise should here seize us ? O you blessed angels, 
who had so full a knowledge of the greatness of this Lord, what 
did you think, when you saw him hanging upon a cross ? God 
commanded Moses to put two cherubims at the sides of the ark, 
with their faces turned towards the mercy-seat, and looking upon 
one another with admiration (Exod. xxv. 18.) ; and for what 
other end was all this, but to give us to understand with what a 
holy astonishment those supreme spirits must be seized, when they 
considered the effect of so great a charity, and beheld this great 
God, who created heaven and earth, nailed to the holy cross, to 
atone for our crimes ? Nature herself is amazed, and every crea- 
ture is astonished. The principalities and powers of heaven are 
ravished with this inestimable goodness, which they behold in 
God. Is there any body, after all this, that is not swallowed up 
in the abyss of such wonders? Who is there, that is not 
drowned in the ocean of such infinite mercies? Who is there 
that can contain his admiration, so as not to cry out with Moses, 
when God showed him the figure of this mystery upon the mount, 
O the Lord J the God, merciful and gracious, patient and of much 
compassion, and true! Exod. xxxiv. 6. He was unable to do any 
thing else, but publish aloud the infinite goodness God had given 
him a sight of. Who would not, like Elias (3 Kings xix. 13), 
hide his eyes, if he saw his God passing by, not in the brightness 
of his majesty, but under the veil of his littleness ; not overturning 
mountains, or splitting the rocks in pieces by his omnipotence, 
but delivered up into the hand of the wicked, and making the 
very rocks melt and burst asunder with compassion? Who is 
there that will not shut the eyes of his understanding and open 
the bosom of his will, that at the sight of so boundless a love, it 
may be inflamed with gratitude, and return all the love it is able 
to give, ^vithout setting any limits or measure to its passion ? O 
height of charity ! greatness of mercy ! O abyss of incompre- 
hensible goodness ! 



36 THE sinner's guide. 

7. It is true, O Lord, that I am thus indebted to thee for 
having redeemed me ; how great must the obhgation be, for hav- 
ing redeemed me in such a manner ? For to redeem me thou 
hast suffered such torments, and such disgrace, as are above the 
reach of our imagination. Thou hast made thyself the scorn of 
men, and the contempt of the world, for the love of me. To 
procure me honor, thou hast dishonored thyself; and hast 
suffered thyself to be accused, that I might be acquitted. Thou 
hast shed thy blood, to wash away the stains of my guilt. Thou 
hast died, to raise me to life, and by thy tears hast delivered me 
from everlasting weeping and gnashing of teeth. How truly 
dost thou deserve the name of a kind Father, since thou hast 
had so tender a love for thy children ? How justly art thou called 
a good Shepherd, who hast given thyself for the nourishment of 
thy flock? How truly faithful a guardian art thou, since thou 
hast so freely laid down thy life for those whom thou hast taken 
into thy care ? What present shall I make thee, answerable to 
this ? With what tears shall I return these tears ? With what 
life shall I repay this hfe ? What proportion is there between the 
life of a man and the life of his God, between the tears of a crea- 
ture and those of his Creator ? 

8. But if, O man, thou shouldst perhaps imagine, that his 
suffering for every body else, as well as for thee, has lessened 
thy obhgation, thou deceivest thyself. For though he suffered 
for all mankind in general, it was in such a manner, that he 
suffered for each particular person. For his infinite wisdom gave 
him as clear and as distinct a representation of all those for 
whom he underwent those torments, as if there had been but 
one single person ; and his immense charity, which made him 
take in all together, has done no less for each one in particular. 
So that he has shed his blood for every single man, as much as 
for all mankind together ; and so great has been his mercy, that 
had there been but one sinner in the whole world, he would 
have suffered as much for him alone, as he had done now for all 
the world. Consider, therefore, how infinitely thou art obliged to 
this Lord, who has done so much for thee, and who would have 
done a great deal more, if there had been any need of it for pro- 
curing thy happiness. 

§ 1. We may gather from what has been hitherto saidy how 
grievous a thing it is to offend God, — 9. I appeal now to all 
creatures, whether man can possibly think of any greater benefit, 
any more generous favor, or any obligation more binding than 
this is. Tell me, O all ye choirs of angels, whether God has ever 
done so much for you ? Can any man, then, after all this, refuse 
to give himself up entirely to the service of God ? " I am in- 
debted to thee, O Lord," says St. Anselm, " for all that I am, 
upon three several accounts ; because thou has created me, I 



THE sinner's guide. 37 

owe thee all that is in me : but I owe thee the same debt, and 
^vith more justice, because thou hast redeemed me, and because 
thou hast promised to reward me with the enjoyment of thyself, 
I cannot but acknowledge I am wholly thine. Why, then, do 
not I give myself once, at least, to him, to whom I am so justly 
due?" O insupportable ingratitude ! O invincible hardness of 
man's heart, which is not to be softened by so many favors I There 
is nothing in the world so hard but it may, by some means or 
other, be made softer. Fire melts metal ; iron grows flexible in 
the forge ; the blood of certain animals will soften even the dia- 
mond itself: but, O more than stony heart, what iron, what dia- 
mond is so hard as thou art, if neither the flames of hell, nor the 
care of so charitable a Father, nor the blood of the imspotted 
Lamb, which has been shed for thee, can make thee soft and flexi- 
ble? Since thou, O Lord, hast showed so much goodness, so 
much mercy, and so much kindness to man, is it to be endured 
that any one should not love, that any one should forget this 
benefit, and that any one should still oflend thee ? What can that 
man love, that is not in love with thee ? What favors can work 
upon him, that is not to be wrought upon by thine ? How can I 
refuse to serve him who has had such a love for me, who has 
sought after me with so much solicitude, and who has done so 
much for the redeeming of me ? And I, says our Saviour, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself; John 
xii. 32. With what force, O Lord, with what chains ? With the 
force of my love, with the chains of my mercies. I will draw 
them, says the Lord, with the cords of Mam, with the hands of 
love; Osee xi. 4. Who is there that will not be drawn with 
these cords ? who will not suffer himself to be bound with these 
chains, or who will not be won by these mercies ? 

10. Now, if it be so heinous a crime not to love this great God, 
what must it be to oflend him, and to break his commandments ? 
How can you dare employ your hands in injuring those hands 
which have been so liberal to you as to suffer themselves to be 
nailed to a cross for your sake ? When the holy patriarch, Joseph, 
was soHcited, by his lewd mistress, to defile his master Putiphar's 
bed, the chaste and grateful young man, by no means consent- 
ing to so foul an action, made this reply : Behold, .my master hath 
delivered all things to me, and knoweth not what he hath in his 
house : neither is there any thing which is not in my power, or 
that he hath not delivered to me, but thee, who art his wife : How 
then can I do this wicked thing, and sin against my God ? Gen. 
xxxix. 8, 9. As if he had said, Since my master has been so kind 
and generous to me ; since he has put all that he is worth into 
my hands, and has done me such an honor as to intrust me with 
his whole estate ; how shall I, who am bound by so many obliga- 
tions, dare affront so good a master ? We are to observe, here, that 

D 



38 THE sinner's guide. 

Joseph did not say, I ought not, or. It is not just that I should 
offend him, but, How can I do this wickedness? — to signify that 
extraordinary favors ought to deprive us, not only of the will, but, 
in some measure, of the very power of offending our benefactor. 
If, therefore, so great an acknowledgment was due to such benefits 
as these, what is it those favors we have received from God do 
not deserve? That master, who was but a mortal man, had 
intrusted him with the management of his estate. God has de- 
livered into your hands almost all he has ; consider how much the 
riches of God exceed those of Putiphar, for so much more have 
you received than he did. And, to make this apparent, what is 
it God possesses that he has not intrusted you with ? Ps. iii. The 
sky, the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers, the birds, 
the fishes, the trees, the beasts ; whatsoever, in short, is under the 
heavens, is in your power : and not only what is under heaven, 
but even what is in heaven itself; that is, the glory, the riches, 
and the happiness that is to be found there. All things are yours, 
says the apostle, whether it he Paul, or Jlppollo, or Cephas, or 
the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come ; 
for all are yours (1 Cor. iii. 22) ; for they all contribute to your 
salvation. Nor is that which is in heaven all we have ; the very 
Lord of heaven himself is ours too. He has given himself to us 
a thousand ways; as our Father, our Tutor, our Saviour, our 
Master, our Physician, our Price, our Example, our Food, our 
Remedy, and our Reward. To conclude, the Father has given us 
the Son ; the Son has made us w^ortjiy of the Holy Ghost ; and it 
is by the virtue of the Holy Ghost that w^e deserve the Father and 
the Son, w^ho are the very sources and fountains from whence all 
sorts of riches flow. 

11. If it be true, that God has given you the possession of all, 
how can you find in your heart to offend so bountiful and so 
generous a Benefactor ? If it be a crime not to requite such great 
favors, what must it be to despise and offend him that bestows 
them? If young Joseph thought himself unable to do an injury 
to his master, because he had committed the care of his house to 
him, with what face can you affront him who has delivered all 
heaven and earth, nay, himself too, into your hands ? O misera- 
ble and unhappy man ! if you are not sensible of this evil, you are 
more ungrateful than the brutes are, more savage than the most 
savage tigers, and more senseless than any senseless thing in na- 
ture. For what lion or tiger is so enraged as to fly at him that 
has done him a kindness ? St. Ambrose tells us of a dog that, 
seeing his master killed by one of his enemies, continued all night 
by the body, barking and howling. The next day, amongst a 
great many people that crowded to see the corpse, the dog spied 
out the person that had committed the murdei, and immediately 
flew^ upon him, and so, by his barking and biting, discovered the 



THE sinner's guide. 39 

malefactor, who otherwise might have probably escaped. If a 
dog showed so much love and fidehty to his master, for a morsel 
of bread, how can you be so ungrateful as to let a dog exceed 
you in good nature and gratitude? And if this creature was in 
such a rage against the man that had murdered his master, how 
can you forbear being incensed against those who have put your's 
to death? And who do you think are they but your own . sins ? 
It was they that apprehended and boimd hun, that scourged and 
crucified him. Your sins, I say, were the cause of all this. For 
his executioners could never have had so much power, if your sins 
had not given it them. Why, then, do you not rise up in arms 
against these barbarous murderers, w^ho have taken away your 
Lord and Saviour's life ? How can you behold him lying dead 
before you, and for your sake, without increasing your love for 
him, and your aversion to sin, which has been the occasion of his 
death ? especially, knowing that, whatsoever he either said, did 
or suffered, in this world, w^as for no other end but to excite in 
our hearts a horror and detestation of sin. He died to make sin 
die, and suffered his hands and feet to be nailed, that he might 
bind up sin in chains, and bring it under subjection. Why, then, 
will you let all your Saviour's toils, sweat and pains be lost to 
you? Since he has, with his blood, delivered you from your fet- 
ters, why will you still remain a slave ? How can you forbear 
trembling at the very name of sin, w^hen God has done such ex- 
traordinary things to ruin and destroy it ? What could God have 
done more, in order to bring men off from sin, than place himself 
upon a cross betwixt it and them ? If a man were to see heaven 
and hell open before him, would he then dare offend God ? And 
yet it is, without doubt, a thing much stranger and more sur- 
prising, to see a God nailed to an infamous cross. If, therefore, so 
frightful a spectacle as this cannot work upon man, there is nothing 
in nature will be able to move him. 



CHAPTER V. 

Of the fifth Motive that obliges its to Virtue, which is the Benefit 

of our Justification. 

1. But w^hat would the benefit of our redemption avail, were 
it not followed by that of justification, by which tliis extraordinary 
favor is applied to us ? For, as physic, though ever so well pre- 
pared, is wholly useless, if not applied to the distemper, so this 
heavenly medicine would work no cure in us, unless applied by 
means of this benefit we now treat of. This appKcation is pecu- 
harly the work of the Holy Ghost, to whom the sanctification of 



40 , THE sinner's guide. 

man is attributed. He it is who prevents the sinner with his 
mercy, who, having thus prevented, calls him, who justifies him 
when called, w^ho conducts him, when justified, in the paths of jus- 
tice, and thus raises him to perfection by the gift of perseverance, 
to crown him in the end with everlasting glory. These are the 
different degrees of grace contained under the inestimable favors of 
justification. 

§ I. — 2. The first of all these graces is that of our vocation. 
When man, by the force of the divine Spirit, having broken all the 
bands and fetters of his sins, is freed from the tyrannic slavery 
of the devil, and raised from death to hfe ; when, of a sinner, he 
becomes a saint, and a child of God from a child of wrath, which 
is not to be done without the special help of the divine grace, as 
our Saviour testifies to us by these words : Ko man can come to 
me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him (John vi. 44) ; 
to signify to us that neither free-will, nor all the advantages of 
human nature, are sufficient of themselves to lift a man out of the 
depth of sin, and raise him to a state of grace, unless the Almighty 
lend him a helping hand. And as St. Thomas, explaining these 
very words, says, " That, as the stone naturally tends downwards, 
and cannot raise itself up again without some exterior assistance, 
so man, according to the bent of his nature, depraved by the cor- 
ruption of sin, is always sinking downwards in the desire of earthly 
things ; so that God must, of necessity, lend a hand to lift him up 
to a supernatural love and desire of heavefily dehghts, or he will 
never be able to rise." This sentence very well deserves both 
our consideration and tears, for by it man comes to know himself, 
grows sensible of the corruption of his nature, and of the necessity 
he perpetually lies under of begging Almighty God's assistance. 

3. But to come to the point, it is impossible for man to return 
from sin to grace, unless the almighty hand of God raise him up. 
But this is a favor of such value that there is no expressing how 
many graces are contained in it. For, there being nothing more 
certain than that sin is, by this means, extracted from the soul, 
and that it is sin which is the cause of all its miseries, how great 
a good must this consequently be, which expels and banishes so 
many evils ? But, for as much as the consideration of this benefit 
is a powerful motive to make us grateful for it, and excite us to the 
pursuit of virtue, I will explain here, in short, the vast riches this 
benefit brings along with it. 

4. First, then,' it is by this that man is reconciled to God, and 
restored to his favor ; for the greatest misery sin causes in our 
souls is the rendering them odious to God, who, as he is goodness 
itself, bears such a hatred to sin as is proportioned to his good- 
ness. For this reason, the royal prophet says. Thou, Lord 
hatest all them that work iniquity ; thou shall destroy all them that 
tell lies ; the Lord will abhor both the blood-thirsty and the deceit- 



THE sinner's guide. 41 

ful man; Ps. v. 7, 8. It is this which, in effect, is the greatest 
of all evils, and the source from whence all others flow ; as the 
love of God, on the other side, is the greatest of all goods, and 
the very fountain of all the rest. This, therefore, is the evil we 
are freed from, by virtue of our justification, since by it w^e are re- 
stored to God's favor ; and, though we were his enemies before, 
this reconciles us to his love again, and that not in any mean de- 
gree, but in the highest that may be, which is that of a father for 
his son. This it is the beloved evangelist St. John so much ex- 
tols, where he says. Behold what manner of charity the Father 
hath bestowed upon us, that we should he called, and should he the 
sons of God ; St. John iii. 1 . He does not think it enough to say 
that we are called the children of God ; he adds, further, that we 
are really so; to the end that human distrust, which carries so 
much weakness and imperfection along with it, should have a 
clearer and more distinct view of the liberality of God's grace, 
and perceive that he has truly and really ennobled man, by making 
him his son, and not given him the title only. If, as we have 
said, it is so miserable a thing to be hated by God, what a happi- 
ness must it be to be beloved by him ? Philosophers tell us that, 
the worse any thing is, the better and more excellent its contrary 
must be. Whence, we are to conclude that thing to be supremely 
good whose opposite is supremely evil, such as man is when he is 
become the object of God's hatred. If men use so much caution 
in this world, not to lose the love of their masters, fathers, princes, 
superiors or kings, how solicitous should we be to keep in favor 
with this powerful King, this heavenly Prince, this sovereign Lord 
and Father, in comparison of whom all earthly power and author- 
ity is a mere nothing ! This favor is the greater by how much 
it is more freely bestowed ; for, as man could do nothing before 
he was created to deserve his being, because at that time he was 
not ; so neither could he, after having once fallen into sin, do any 
thing at all that might deserve the gift of justification ; not be- 
cause he was not, but because he was wicked and odious in the 
sight of God. 

5. Another benefit, besides this, is, that justification takes off 
the sentence of everlasting torments, which man^s sins had con- 
demned him to. For, whereas sin makes a man the object of 
God's hatred, and it is impossible that any one should be hated by 
him, and not, at the same time, be in the greatest misery imagi- 
nable, it follows that the wicked, having cast Ahnighty God off 
from them, and ungratefully despised him, deserve very justly to 
be cast away by God, and to be despised and neglected by him. 
They deserve to be banished for ever from his presence, never to 
enjoy his company, never to enter into his most beautiful and 
glorious palace. And because, in separating themselves from 
him, they have had an irregular love for the creatures, it is but 
6 ^ D2 



42 THE sinner's guide. 

justice they should be condemned, for the same, to eternal pains 
and torments, which are so rigorous that, if we compare all that 
men suffer, in this life, to them, they will look more ideal than 
real torments. Let us add to these miseries the never-dying 
worm, which will continually gnaw the very bowels, and tear the 
consciences of the wicked ; add also, the company which these 
unhappy souls must always keep, which shall be no pleasanter 
than that of all the damned. What shall I say of their horrible 
and melancholy habitation, full of darkness and confusion, where 
there never shall be any order, joy, rest or peace ; never any com- 
fort, satisfaction or hope ? where there shall be nothing but eter- 
nal weeping and gnashing of teeth, eternal rage and blasphemies ? 
God delivers those whom he justifies from all these miseries, and, 
having restored them to his grace and favor, frees them entirely 
from his wrath and vengeance. 

6. There is another advantage, yet more spiritual than the for- 
mer, which is the reforming and renewing of the inward man, all 
deformed and disfigured by sin. Because sin, in the first place, 
deprives the soul, not only of God, but of all its supernatural 
force, and of all those treasures and gifts of the Holy Ghost, with 
which it was enriched and adorned. So that, being once robbed 
of the riches of grace, it is immediately maimed and wounded in 
all its natural powers and faculties ; because man, being a rational 
creature, and sin being an action against reason, as it is very na- 
tural for one contrary to destroy another, it follows of course, that, 
the greater and more numerous our sins are, the greater must be 
the ruin the faculties of the soul lie open to, not in themselves, 
but in the natural inclination they have to do good. Thus, sin 
makes the soul miserable, weak, slothful, inconstant in the doing 
of what is good, and bent upon all kind of evil, unable to resist 
temptations, and soon tired with walking in the way of God's 
commandments. It also deprives the soul of true liberty, and 
of that sovereignty of the spirit, and makes it a mere slave to the 
world, the flesh, the devil, and its own inordinate appetites; 
bringing it under a harder and more unhappy servitude than that 
of the Israelites in Egypt or Babylon. Nor are these all the mise- 
ries which sin reduces the soul to: it oppresses it, besides, in 
such "a manner that it can neither hear God speaking to it, nor 
perceive those dreadful calamities with which it is threatened ; it 
is quite senseless to that sweet smell which comes from the virtues 
and examples of the saints ; it cannot taste how sweet the Lord 
is, nor feel the stroke of God's hand, any more than those graces 
which he pours into it, to excite it to the love of him. Besides 
all these ills, it takes away the peace and joy of conscience, and 
so, by degrees, lessens and cools the fervor of the spirit, till it 
leaves poor man in such a miserable condition that he is foul, 
deformed and abominable in the sight of God, and of his saints, 



THE sinner's guide. 43 

7. The grace of justification delivers us from all these miseries. 
For God, who is an infinite abyss of mercy, thinks it not enough 
to pardon our sins, and receive us into his favor, unless he free 
our souls from all those disorders which sin had raised in it, by 
reforming and renewing the inward man. So that he heals our 
wounds, he cleanses us from our filth, he loosens our chains, he 
eases us of the burthen of our evil desires, he frees us from the 
slavery and captivity of the devil, he moderates the heat of our 
passions, he restores us to a true liberty, he beautifies the soul 
anew, he settles peace and joy in our consciences again, he enli- 
vens our inward motions, he makes us forward to do what is good, 
and backward to do that which is not, he strengthens us against 
temptations, and, after all these benefits, he enriches us with a 
treasure of good works ; in fine, he repairs our inward man, with 
all its faculties, after such a manner, that the apostle does not hesi- 
tate to call those, who are thus justified, new men and new crea- 
tures ; 2 Cor. iv. 16. So great is the grace of this renovation, 
that, when we receive it by baptism, it is called a regeneration 
(Galat. vi. 15) ; when by penance, a resurrection ; not only be- 
cause the soul, by virtue of it, is raised from the death of sin to 
the life of grace, but because it holds some proportion with the 
glory of the general resurrection at the last day. This is so cer- 
tainly true, that no tongue is able to declare the beauty of a jus- 
tified soul, but only that divine Spirit which beautifies and makes 
it his temple and dwelling-place ; so that, if we should compare 
all the riches of the earth, all the honors of the world, all the 
benefits of nature, and all the virtues we are able to acquire, 
with the beauty and riches of such a soul, they would all appear 
base and deformed before it. Because the fife of grace has the 
same advantages over that of nature, the beauty of the soul over 
that of the body, inward riches over the outward, and spiritual 
strength over the corporeal, as heaven has over earth, a spirit 
over a body, or eternity over time. For all these things are 
transitory, limited and only beautiful to the eyes of the body; 
nor have they need of any more than a general assistance and 
support from God, whilst the others stand in need of a peculiar 
and supernatural help, and cannot be called temporal, because 
they lead us to eternity; nor can we say they are altogether 
finite, because they make us worthy to partake the infinity of 
God, who has such an esteem and love for them that he is even 
enamoured with their beauty. And though God could do all these 
things only by his will, yet he was not so satisfied, but would 
adorn the soul vrith infused virtues, and the seven gifts of the 
Holy Ghost ; by the means whereof, not only the essence, but all 
the faculties of the soul are adorned and beautified with these 
heavenly graces. 

8. To all these extraordinary benefits, his infinite goodness, and 



44 THE sinner's guide. 

boundless liberality has added another, which is the presence of 
the Holy Ghost and of the blessed Trinity, which descends into 
the soul of him that is justified, to instruct him what use to make 
of all these riches ; like a good father, who not only leaves his 
estate to his son, but provides him a guardian to look after and 
manage it for him ; so that as the soul of one that is in sin is a 
den of vipers, dragons and serpents ; that is to say, a place where 
all sorts of wicked spirits dwell, according to our Saviour (St. 
Matthew, ch. xii.) ; so the soul of a justified man becomes the 
habitation of the Holy Ghost and of the blessed Trinity, v/hich, 
having expelled all these hellish monsters and wild beasts, make 
it its temple and place of abode, as our Saviour has expressly sig- 
nified by these words : If any one love me, he will keep Tny word, 
and my Father will love him, and we will come. to him, and will 
make our abode with him : St. John xiv. 23. From which words 
the holy fathers and the school-men conclude that the Holy Ghost 
dwells, in a particular manner, in the soul of a justified man, dis- 
tinguishing between the Holy Ghost and his gifts ; and declaring 
that such persons partake, not only of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, 
but of the Holy Ghost himself; who, entering into every soul 
thus disposed, makes it his temple and dwelling-place ; and, to this 
end, he himself cleanses, sanctifies and adorns it, with his gifts, that 
it may be a place worthy to entertain such a guest. 

9. Add to all these benefits one more, which is, that all those 
who are justified become living members of Jesus Christ ; whereas 
they were dead before, and incapable, whilst they remained in 
that condition, of receiving the influence of his grace, whence 
many other singular privileges and excellences flow to it. For 
this is the reason why the Son of God loves and cherishes these 
persons as his own members, and, as their Head, is continually 
communicating force and vigor to them. And, lastly, the eternal 
Father behold them with eyes of affection, because he looks upon 
them as living members of his only Son, united to and incor- 
porated with him by the participation of the Holy Ghost. And, 
therefore, their actions are pleasing to him, and meritorious to 
themselves, inasmuch as they are actions of the living members 
of his only Son Christ Jesus, who produces all that is good in 
them. This is, also, the reason why those persons, who are thus 
justified, whensoever they beg any favor of Almighty God, ad- 
dress themselves to him with a perfect confidence ; because they 
suppose that what they ask is not so much for themselves as for 
the Son of God, who is honored in them, and with them. For 
since the members can receive no benefit but the head must par- 
take of it, Christ being their Head, they conceive that, when they 
ask for themselves, they ask for him. And, if what the apostle 
says be true, that they who sin against the members of Jesus 
Christ sin against Jesus Christ himself, and that he looks upon 



THE sinner's guide. 45 

any injury offered to one of his members, upon his account, as 
done to him, as he said to the apostle himself, when he persecuted 
the church ; what w^onder is it that the honor done to these mem- 
bers should be done to him? This being so, what confidence will 
not the just man bring with him to his prayers, when he considers 
that in begging for himself, he, in some measure, begs of the 
heavenly Father for his beloved Son? For w^hen a favor is 
granted at the request of another, it may, doubtless, rather be 
said to be bestowed on him that begs, than on him that receives 
it ; as we see, that he who serves the poor for the love of God, 
serves God more than he does the poor. 

10. There remains another benefit, to which the rest tend and 
are directed ; it is the right and title those that are justified have 
to eternal life. For God, who is no less merciful than he is just, 
as he on the one side condemns impenitent sinners to everlasting 
torments, so, on the other side, he rewards them who are truly 
penitent with everlasting happiness. And though he could for- 
give men their sins, and restore them to his friendship and favor, 
without raising them so high as to partake of his glory, yet he 
would not do so, but out of the excess of his mercy justified those 
whom he had pardoned, adopted those whom he had justified, and 
made them his heirs, giving them a share in his riches, and an in- 
heritance with his only Son. Hence proceeds that lively hope, 
which comforts the just in all their tribulations, because they are 
assured beforehand of this inestimable treasure. For though they 
see themselves surrounded T\ath all the troubles, infirmities and 
miseries of this life, they know very well that all the evils they 
can possibly suffer here are nothing, in comparison of the glory 
which is prepared for them hereafter ; nay, on the contrary, they 
assure themselves, that our present tribulation, which is momen- 
tary and light, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eter- 
nal weight of glory ; 2 Cor. iv. 17. 

11. These are the advantages comprehended under that inesti- 
mable benefit of justification, which St. Augustine, with a great 
deal of reason, prefers before the creation of the whole world ; 
because God created all the world with one single word : but the 
justifying of a man after his fall was at the expense of his blood, 
and of those other most grievous pains and torments he endured. 
Now, if we are so strictly obliged to the Almighty's goodness for 
having created us, how much more do we owe his mercy, for 
having justified us ; a favor we stand so much the more indebted 
for, as it cost him more than the other ? 

12. And though no man can certainly tell whether he be justi- 
fied or not, yet he may give a probable guess, especially by the 
change of his fife ; as, for example, when one that before never 
scrupled at committing a thousand mortal sins, would not now 
commit one, though it were to gain the world : let him that per- 



46 THE sinner's guide. 

ceives he is in such a happy condition, consider what an obligation 
lies upon him to serve his Lord, for having thus sanctified him, 
and at the same time delivered him from all those miseries, and 
heaped all those favors on him which we spoke of. But if he 
happen to be in the state of sin, I know nothing that can more 
efficaciously excite him to a desire of being freed from it, than the 
consideration of those misfortunes which sin draws after it, and of 
those treasures of blessings which go along with the incomparable 
benefit of justification. 

§ II. Of some other Effects that are wrought by the Holy Ghost 
in the Soul of a justified Man, and of the Sacrament of the Eucha-' 
rist, — 13. Notwithstanding those effects which are produced by 
the Holy Ghost in the soul of one that is sanctified are very great, 
yet they do not end there. This divine Spirit deems it not 
enough to put us in the way of justice, but, after having led us 
in, still helps us forward, till, all the storms of this world being 
weathered, he brings us into the haven of salvation ; so that, when 
he tas entered into a soul by the grace of justification, he does 
not remain idle there ; he not only honors such a soul with his 
presence, but also sanctifies it with his virtue, doing in it and with 
it whatever is necessary for the obtaining its salvation. He be- 
haves himself there like a head of a family in his house, looking 
after and directing like a master teaching in his school, like a 
gardener cultivating in his garden, and like a king in his kingdom 
ruling and governing it. He further performs in the soul what the 
sun does in the world ; that is, he gives light to it : and, like the 
soul in the body, animates and enlivens it, though he does not 
act as the former does upon its matter, but as the head of a family 
in his house. Can man desire any greater happiness in this 
world than to have such a Guest, such a Guardian, such a Com- 
panion, such a Governor, such a Tutor, and such an Assistant 
within himself ; for he being all things, exercises all capacities in 
the soul, in which he takes his habitation: thus we see, that, 
like fire, he enlightens the understanding, inflames the will, and 
raises us from earth to heaven. It is he who, like a dove, makes 
us simple, peaceable, gentle and kind to one another : he it is 
who, like a cloud, defends us against the burning lusts of the flesh, 
w^ho moderates the heat of our passions, and, in fine, like a violent 
wind, forces and bends down our wills towards that which is good, 
and carries them away from all such affections as may lead to 
evil. Hence it is, that they who are justified conceive such a 
horror of the vices they had so great a love for before their con- 
version, and so great an esteem for the virtues they so much de- 
tested before. This David very lively represents to us, speaking 
of himself in one of his Psalms, where he says, / hated and ab- 
horred iniquity (Ps. cxviii. 163) ; and again, in the same Psalm, 
/ have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies , as much as in all 



THE sinner's guide. 47 

riches ; ver. 14. Who was it but the Holy Ghost, that occasioned 
this alteration ? for he, like a loving mother, put wormwood upon 
the breasts of this world, and most delicious honey into the com- 
mandments of God. 

This plainly shows, that whatsoever good we do, what progress 
soever we make, we are entirely obliged to the Holy Ghost, for 
the same. So that, if we are converted from sin, it is by his 
grace ; if we embrace virtue, it is he that brings us to it ; if we 
persevere in it, it is by his assistance ; if, in short, we one day 
receive the reward he has promised, it is he himself that gives it 
us : for which reason St. Augustine says very well, God rewards 
his own benefits when he rewards our services. So that one favor 
procures us another, and one mercy is only a step to the obtain- 
ing of another. The holy patriarch Joseph (Gen. xlii. 25) 
thought it not enough to give his brothers the corn they went to 
buy m Egypt, but ordered his servants to put the money they 
brought to pay for it into the mouth of the very sack : God in 
some measure does the same with his elect, for he gives them not 
only eternal life, but grace and a good life to purchase it. Where- 
upon Eusebias Emissenus says excellently well, " that he who is 
adorned, to the end that he may show mercy, has showed mercy 
already, when he gave us grace to adore him." 

Let every man, therefore, consider how he has spent his life, 
and reflect upon all those favors God has bestowed on him, and 
on all those crimes, these frauds, adulteries, thefts and sacrileges, 
which he has preserved him from falling into, and by this means 
he will see upon what accounts he stands indebted to him ; be- 
cause, according to St. Augustine, it is no less mercy to preserve 
us from falling into sin, than to pardon it when committed, but 
much greater ; and, therefore, the same saint, writing to a virgin, 
says, " Man is to make account, that God has pardoned him all 
sorts of sin, inasmuch as he has given him grace not to commit 
them;" Lib. 2. Conf. c. 7. Let not, therefore, your love be 
little, as if he had pardoned you but little; rather endeavour 
to love much, because you have received much. For if a man 
loves a creditor that forgives a great debt, how much more 
reason has he to love a Benefactor that bestows so much on 
him ? For he who has hved chastely all his lifetime, has, there- 
fore, continued so, because he had God to direct and guide 
him ; he who, of an impure person, becomes pure, has had God 
to correct him ; and he who continues impure to the end, is 
justly forsaken by Almighty God. This being a matter beyond 
all doubt, it only remains that we say, with the prophet. Let my 
mouth he filled with praise, that I may sing thy glory and honor all 
day ; Ps. Ixx. 8. Upon which words St. Augustine says, " What 
means all the day ? Nothing else, but that I will praise thee for 
ever, and without ceasing ; m my prosperity, because thou com- 



48 THE sinner's guide. 

fortest me ; in my adversity, because thou chastisest me ; since I 
have had my being, because it is from thee that I have received it ; 
when I sinned, because thou forgavest ; when I return to thee, 
because thou receivedst me ; and when I persevered to the end, 
because thou rewardest me. For this reason my mouth shall be 
filled with thy praise, O Lord, and I will sing thy glory all the day." 

14. It would be proper here to speak of the benefit of the 
Sacraments, which are the instruments of our justification, and 
particularly of that of Baptism, as also of the light of faith, and 
of the grace we receive with it ; but having treated this subject 
elsewhere, I shall add no more at present; yet I cannot pass in 
silence that grace of graces, that sacrament of sacraments, by 
virtue of which God is pleased to live with us on earth, to give 
himself every day to us as our food and as our sovereign remedy. 
He was sacrified on the cross but once for our sakes ; but here 
he is daily offered up to his Father on the altar, a propitiation for 
our sins. This is my body which is given for you, says he; do this 
for a commemoration of me ; Luke xxii. 19. O precious pledge 
of our salvation ! O divine sacrifice! O most acceptable victim ! 
Bread of life! Most delicious nourishment! Food of kings! 
O sweet manna, which contains whatsoever is pleasant and de- 
lightful ! Who can ever be able to praise you according to your 
deserts? who can worthily receive? who can honor you with due 
respect and reverence ? My soul quite loses itself, when it thinks 
of you ; my tongue fails me ; nor am I able to express the least 
part of your wonders as I desire to do. 

Had our Lord bestowed this favor upon none but innocent 
and holy men, it would have still been inestimable ; how great, 
then, must this unparalled charity be, which, after having moved 
him to communicate himself so freely to those, has further pre- 
vailed on him to pass through the impure hands of many wicked 
priests, whose souls are the habitations of devils, whose bodies 
are vessels of corruption, whose lives are continual sacrileges, 
and spent in nothing else but in sin and iniquity ? And yet, that 
he may visit and comfort his friends, he suffers himself to be 
touched by such polluted hands, to be received into such profane 
mouths, and to be buried in their noisome and abominable breasts. 
His body was sold but once ; but in this sacrament he is sold a 
thousand times. He was scorned and despised but once in his 
passion ; whereas these impious priests offer him infinite affronts 
and injuries at the very table of the altar. He was once crucified 
between two thieves ; but here he is crucified millions of times in 
the hands of sinners. 

15. Who is there that will pretend, after all this, to be able to 
pay due respect and honor to a Lord that has consulted our in- 
terest so many several ways ? What returns can we make for so 
wonderful a nourishment ? If servants serve their masters for 



THE sinner's guide. 49 

a poor livelihood, if soldiers for their pay expose themselves to 
fire and sword, what ought we to do for this Lord, who maintains 
us with this heavenly and immortal food ? If God, in the old 
law, required so great an acknowledgment for the manna he sent 
from heaven, though it was corruptible food, what returns will he 
expect for this, which, besides being exempt from corruption, 
makes all those who receive it worthily incorruptible? If the 
Son of God thanks his Father, in the gospel, for only one meal of 
barley-bread, what kinds of thanks should we give him for this 
bread of life ? If we are so much indebted to him for the nourish- 
ment he gives us to preserve our being, how much greater is our 
obligation for that food which preserves in us the supernatural 
being of grace ? For we do not commend a horse purely because 
he is a horse, but because he is a good horse ; nor wine because it 
is wine, but because it is good w^ine ; nor man because he is man, 
but because he is a good man. If you are so much obhged to 
him that made you man, how much greater is your obligation for 
having made you a good man? If the acknowledgment be so 
great on account of corporal benefits, what should it be for the 
spiritual ? If you are so deeply indebted for the gifts of nature, 
how much more do we owe for those graces ? And if, to conclude, 
his having made you a son of Adam, lays so strict a tie of gratitude 
on you, how much must you be obliged to him for having made 
you a son of God himself ? For it is certainly true, as Eusebius 
Emissenus says, " That the day w^e are born to eternity is in- 
finitely better than that which brought us forth to the toils and 
dangers of this world.'* 

This, dear Christian, is another motive, and, as it were, a new 
chain added to the others, to bind your hearts the faster, and 
obhge you to the pursuit of virtue and service of this Lord. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Of the. sixth Motive that obliges us to the Love of Virtue, which 
is, the Benefit of Divine Election. 

1. Add to all the benefits we have hitherto spoken of, that of 
election, which belongs to none but those whom God has chosen 
from all eternity to be partakers of his glory. It is for this ines- 
timable benefit the apostle thanks God in his own and in the 
name of all the elect, when, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, he 
says. Blessed he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things, 
in Christ : as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the 
world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity. 
7 E 



50 THE sinner's guide. 

Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through 
Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will ; 
Ephes. i. 3, 4, 5. The royal prophet highly extols this favor, 
when he says. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and re- 
ceivest unto thee ; he shall dwell in the court ; Ps. Ixiv. 5. This, 
therefore, we may justly call the grace of graces, and benefit of 
benefits ; inasmuch as God, purely out of his own goodness, be- 
stows it on us before we deserve it. For he, like one who is the 
absolute master of his own riches, without wronging any man, but 
rather affording every one sufficient assistance to work his salva- 
tion, pours out the abundance of his mercy on some particular 
persons, without any limits or measure. 

2. It is also the benefit of benefits, not only because it is the 
greatest, but because it is the very source of all the rest. For 
God, having chosen man for his glory, bestows on him, through 
the means of this first favor, whatsoever is necessary for obtaining 
of his glory, as he testifies by the mouth of one of his prophets, 
in these words ; / have loved thee with an eternal love, and there- 
fore with loving kindness have I drawn thee (Jerem. xxxi. 3) ; 
that is, I have called you to my grace, that by its help you may 
arrive at my glory. The apostle expresses the same thing to us, 
in much clearer terms : Whom God has foreknown, he has also pre- 
destinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son, that he 
might be the first-born among many brethren. And whom he pre- 
destinated, them he also called ; and whom he called, them he also 
justified ; and whom he justified, them he also glorified ; Rom. 
viii. 29, 30. The reason of this is, because as God disposes all 
things sweetly and regularly, he has no sooner been pleased to 
choose a man for his glory, but he bestows on him, on account of 
his grace, many others, and furnishes him with a sufficient supply 
of all things necessary for the obtaining of the first grace. So 
that, as a father that has a design to bring one of his children up 
for the church, or the bar, employs him, whilst he is but a child, 
about such things as have a regard to the one or the other, and 
directs all the actions of his life to this end ; so the eternal Father, 
when he has chosen a man for his glory, to which the way of 
justice leads us, takes care always to keep him right in this road, 
that so he may attain the end he is designed for. 

It is fit, therefore, that they who perceive in themselves any 
token of this favor, should thank God sincerely and heartily for 
it. For though it is a secret hid from human eyes, yet there are 
certain signs of our election, as there are of our justification. 
And as the surest mark of our justification is the conversion of 
our lives, so the best token of our election is our perseverance in 
a good life ; for he who has lived many years in the fear of the 
Lord, and has been very careful not to fall into any kind of sin, 
may piously believe that, according to the apostle, God will con- 



THE sinner's guide. 51 

firm him to the end, that he may he blameless in the day of the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ; 1 Cor. i. 8. 

3. It is true, no man ought to think himself secure, since we 
see that Solomon, after he had led a pious life for several years, 
was seduced in his old age ; but yet this example is only a par- 
ticular exception from a general rule, which is the same in effect 
with what the apostle has taught us, and which the same Solo- 
mon tells us, in his Proverbs (ch. xxii. 6), in these words : It is a 
common saying, a young man according to his way, when he is 
old will not depart from it ; so that, if he was virtuous in his 
youth, he will be so w^hen he is old. By these or such like con- 
jectures, which are to be met with in the writings of the saints, a 
man may humbly presume that God, out of his infinite goodness, 
has made him one of the number of his elect. And as he hopes to 
be saved through God's mercy, so may he with all humility con- 
clude he is of the number of those that are to be saved, since the 
one presupposes the other. 

This principle once settled, a man will soon see how strictly he 
is obliged to serve God for so extraordinary a favor, as is that of 
having his name written in that book, whereof our Saviour, speak- 
ing to his apostles, says. Rejoice not in this, that spirits are subject 
unto you : but rejoice in this, that your names are written in 
heaven ; Luke x. 20. For what greater benefit can there be, than 
to have been beloved and chosen from all eternity, ever since God 
has been God ? to have been lodged in his bosom and made choice 
of by him for his adopted child, when he begot his own Son, ac- 
cording to nature in the glory of the saints, who w^ere then all 
really present in the divine understanding ? 

4. Weigh, therefore, all circumstances of this election, and you 
will find that each of them is an extraordinary favor, and a new 
obligation to serve God. Consider the dignity of him who has 
elected you ; it is God himself, who, as being infinitely rich and 
infinitely happy, had no need of you or of any one else in the 
world. Reflect next upon the person elected, how unworthy he 
is of such a grace, since he is no better than a poor mortal crea- 
ture, exposed to all the necessities, infirmities and miseries of this 
life, and worthy for his sins to be condemned to eternal torments 
in the next. Observe how glorious an election this is, since the 
end for which you have been elected is so noble that nothing can 
be above it ; for what can be greater than to become the Son of 
God, the heir to his kingdom and sharer with him in his glory ? 
Examine, in the next place, how gratuitous his election was, 
since it was before all merit whatsoever, proceeding only from 
the good will of Almighty God, and, according to the apostle, to 
the praise of the glory of his grace ; Ephes. i. 6. For the more 
generous and free a favor is, the greater the obhgation it lays on 
him that receives it. Consider, also, how ancient this election is. 



52 THE sinner's guide. 

for it did not begin with the world, but was long before it, for it 
is co-eternal with God, who, being himself from all eternity, has, 
in like manner, from all eternity loved his elect, has always had 
them in his divine presence, and has them there still, beholding 
them with a fatherly eye of love, and being always resolved to 
confer so great a favor on them. Consider, after all, how parties 
ular this benefit is, since he has been pleased to honor you with 
so infinite a blessing, as is the admitting of you into the number 
of his elect, whilst there are so many nations quite ignorant of 
him, and which he has rejected, and, therefore, he separated you 
from the mass of perdition, to raise you to a holy union with his 
saints, making that which was the leaven of corruption become 
the bread of angels. Such a grace should put a stop to our pens 
and tongues, that we may be wholly taken up in the acknowledg- 
ing and admiring of it, and in learning what returns we are to 
make for it. But what should give a greater value to this favor, 
is the small number of the elect, whilst that of the reproved is so 
great, that Solomon (Eccl. i. 15) calls it infinite ; the rmmber of 
joolsy that is, of the reprobate, is infinite. But if none of all these 
considerations is able to make any impression on you, be moved, 
at least, by the excessive price this sovereign. Elector has given to 
purchase you ; it is no less than the life and blood of his only be- 
gotten Son, whom he, from all eternity, resolved to send down into 
the world, to put this, his divine decree, in execution. 

5. If this be true, what time can suffice to spend in humble 
reflections upon so many mercies ? What tongue can be eloquent 
enough to express them ? What heart capacious enough to con- 
ceive them? What returns and acknowledgments can be made 
foj them ? With what love shall a man be ever able to repay this 
eternal love ? Can any man be so base as to defer loving God to 
the end of his fife, when God has had such a love for him from 
all eternity ? Who will part with such a friend as this is, for any 
friend in this world ? For if the Scripture sets such a value upon 
an old friend, how much ought we to praise that friendship which 
is eternal ? Forsake not an old friend, for a n^w one will not be 
like him ; Eccl. ix. 14. If this advice holds good in all cases, 
w^ho is there that will not prefer this friend before all the friends 
in the world ? And if this be true, that possession, time out of 
mind, gives him a title that had none before, what must a posses- 
sion do that has been everlasting? It is eternity that has entitled 
God to the possession of us, that he might, by this means, make 
us his,. 

^. What riches or honor can there be in the world, which a 
man should not give in exchcinge for this blessing ? What troubles 
or misfortunes, which we ought not to suffer for purchasing it ? Is 
there any man, though ever so wicked, that would not fall down 
and kiss the ground a beggar trod on, were he assured by divine 



THE sinner's guide. 53 

revelation that the beggar was predestined to everlasting happi- 
ness, that would not run after him, and prostrating himself at his 
feet, call him a thousand times happy ? Who is there that would 
not cry out, O blessed soul, is it possible that you should be one 
of this happy number of the elect ? Is it possible that God should 
have made choice of you from all eternity, to see him one day in all 
his beauty and glory ? that he should have chosen you to be a 
companion and brother to the elect ? Are you one of those who 
are to be seated among the choirs of angels ? Must you hear the 
heavenly music ? And shall you behold the resplendent face of 
Jesus Christ and of his holy Mother ? Happy the day which first 
brought you into the world : but much happier that of your death, 
because then you shall begin to live for ever. Happy the bread 
you eat, and the ground you tread on, since it bears such an in^ 
estimable treasure . But much more happy those pains you endure, 
since they open you the way to eternal ease and rest ! For what 
clouds of affliction can there be, which the assurance of this hap- 
piness will not disperse I 

7. We should doubtless break out into such transports as these, 
did we behold a predestined person, and know him to be so. For 
if all people run out to see a young prince, that is heir to some 
great kingdom, as he passes through the street, admiring his good 
fortune, as the world accounts it, to inherit large dominions, how 
much more reason have we to admire the happiness of a man 
elected from his birth, without any preceding merits on his side, 
not to a temporal kingdom in this world, but to an eternal crown 
of glory in heaven. 

8. Jiere you may learn how great these obligations are, which 
the elect owe to God, for so unspeakable a favor. And yet there 
is not one of us all, if we do what is required of us, that is to 
look upon himself as excluded this number. On the contrary, 
every one should use his endeavours, according to St. Peter, to 
make his calling and election sure, by good works ; 2 Pet. i. 10. 
For we are most certain that he who does so shall not miss his 
salvation ; and, what is more, we know that God has never yet 
refused, nor ever will refuse, any man his grace and assistance. 
It is, therefore, our main business, since we are assured of these 
two points, to continue in the doing of good works, that we may 
by that means be of the number of those happy souls whom God 
has chosen to be partakers of his glory for ever. 

E2 



54 THE SINNER S GUIDE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Of the seventh Motive that obliges us to the Pursuit of Virtue, 
which is Death, the first of the four last Things. 

1. Any one of the aforementioned motives ought to be sufficient 
to persuade men to give themselves up entirely to the service of 
a master that has obliged them with so many favors. But, be- 
cause duty and justice have less influence over the generality of 
mankind than profit and interest, I will, therefore, add those great 
advantages which are proposed as the recompense and reward of 
virtue, both in this life, and in the next, and shall first speak of 
the two greatest, viz. the glory we shall acquire, and the punish- 
ment we shall avoid, by faithfully adhering to it. These are the 
two oars that are so serviceable to us in this voyage ; they are, as 
it were, the compass by which we may steer our course more 
steadily and securely. This is the reason why St. Francis and St. 
Dominick, in their rules, both of them moved by the same spirit, 
and making use of the very same words, commanded the preachers 
of their orders, never to take any other subjects of their sermons 
but virtue and vice, heaven and hell ; the one to instruct us how 
to live well, the other to incline us to it. It is a received opinion 
among philosophers, that reward and punishment are, as it were, 
the two springs which make the wheels of a man's life turn round 
in regular motion. For such, alas ! is our unhappiness, and so 
great the corruption of our nature, that no one can endure naked 
virtue, that is to say, if the fear of punishment does not go along 
with it, or the hope of a reward attend it. But since there is no 
punishment or reward which can so justly deserve our considera- 
tion as those which are never to have an end, we will, therefore, 
speak here of everlasting glory and everlasting torments, together 
with those other two things that are to precede them, which are 
death and judgment. For any one of these points, considered 
with attention, may be infinitely advantageous to the making us 
love virtue and hate vice, according to the wise man, where he 
says : In all that thou undertakest, remember thy last end, and thou 
s/mlt never do amiss ; Eccl. vii. 40. He means here those four 
things we have just now mentioned, and which we are going to 
discourse on. 

§ 1. — 2. To begin with the first, which is death. The reason 
why this, of all the rest, works most on us, is its being the most 
certain, the most frequent, and the most familiar of them all, 
especially if we reflect upon the particular judgment that is to be 
given on the whole course of our lives at that time, which, when 
once past, will not be reversed on the general judgment day ; for 



THE sinner's guide. 55 

whatsoever is then decreed shall stand good for ever. But how 
rigorous this judgment will be, and how severe an account will 
be taken of our actions, I do not desire you should believe upon 
my bare allegation, but that you give credit to a passage, related 
by St. John Climachus upon this point, to which he himself was 
an eye-witness, and is, indeed, one of the most dreadful I ever read 
in my life. He tells us, " there was a certain monk in his time 
called Hesychius, who lived in a cell on Mount Horeb. Having 
led a very careless and negligent sort of life, during the w^hole 
time of his retirement, without so much as ever thinking of his 
salvation, he was at last taken very ill, and, being past all hopes 
of recovery, lay for about the space of an hour as if he had been 
quite dead. But afterwards coming to himself again, he earnestly 
desired that we would all go out of his cell. And as soon as ever 
we had left him, he walled up his door, and remained thus, shut 
up within his cell, for twelve years, never speaking one word to 
any person during all that time. He lived upon nothing but 
bread and water ; and continued alw^ays sitting, keeping his whole 
thoughts, as if it had been in perpetual ecstacy, so bent upon what 
he had seen in his vision, that he never so much as once altered 
the posture he was in, but remaining, as it were, always out of 
his senses, and in deep silence, wept most bitterly. A little be- 
fore his death we broke open his door, and went into his cell, 
earnestly desiring him to speak some words of edification. But 
all we could get from him was ; * Pardon me, my brethren, if I 
have nothing else to say to you but this, that he who has the 
thoughts of death deeply imprinted upon his mind, can never sin.' " 
These are St. John Climachus's own words, who was present 
when this happened, and relates nothing but what he saw ; so that, 
though the passage may seem incredible, there is no cause to mis- 
trust the truth of it, since we have it from so grave and credible 
an author. There is nothing which we ought not to fear, when 
we consider the hfe this holy man led, but much more if we inquire 
into the frightful vision that was the occasion of his long penance ! 
This evidently makes out the truth of that saying of the wise man : 
Be mindful of thy last end, and thou shall neve?' do amiss ; Eccl. 
vii. 40. If, then, this consideration be of such force to make us 
avoid sin, let us briefly reflect upon the most remarkable circum- 
stances that attend it, to the end we may by this means obtain so 
great a benefit. 

3. Remember, therefore, that you are a man and a Christian. 
As man, you know you are to die, and as a Christian, you know 
you are to give an account of your life as soon as dead. Daily 
experience will not permit us to doubt the one, nor the faith we 
profess let us call the other into question. Every one of us all 
lies under this necessity. Kings and popes must submit to it. 
The day will come when you shall not live to see night, or a night 



56 THE sinner's guide. 

when you shall not survive till day. The day will come and you 
know not whether it may not be this very day or to-morrow, 
when you yourself, who are now reading this treatise in perfect 
health, and who perhaps think the number of your days will be 
answerable to your business and wishes, shall be stretched out in 
your bed, with a taper in your hand, expecting the last stroke of 
death, and the execution of that sentence which is passed upon all 
mankind, and from which there is no appeal. Consider, then, 
the uncertainty of this hour, for generally it surprises us when we 
least think of it, and is, therefore, said to come like a thief in the 
night ; that is, when men are fastest asleep. A violent and mor- 
tal sickness is the usual forerunner of death and of all its attend- 
ants. Pains, aches, distractions, griefs, ravings, long and tedious 
nights, which quite tire and w^ar us out, are but so many w^ays 
and dispositions towards it. And as we see that an enemy, before 
he can force his entrance into a town, must batter down the walls, 
so the forerunner of death is some raging distemper, which so 
furiously, without intermission, batters down our natural vigor and 
breaks in upon the chief parts of the body, that the soul, not able 
to hold out longer, is obliged to surrender. 

4. But when the sickness grows desperate, and the physician 
or the distemper itself undeceive us, by leaving us no hopes of 
life, how great is our anguish at that time ! Then it is we begin 
with concern and sorrow to think of departing this life, and of 
forsaking whatsoever we held most dear. Wife, children, friends, 
relations, estates, dignities, employments, all vanish when we die. 
Next follows those last accidents, that attend us just at our going 
off, which are much more grievous than all the rest ; the feet grow 
cold, the nose shrinks in, the tongue stammers and is incapable 
of performing its duty ; in fine, all the senses and members are in 
confusion and disorder on so sudden and hasty a departure. Thus 
man, at his going out of the world, by his own sufferings, pays 
back those pains he put others to when he came into it ; so that 
there is no great difference, as to the matter of suffering, between 
his birth and his death, since they are both of them attended with 
grief, the first with what his mother endured, and the last what he 
endured himself. 

5. Nor is this all that makes this last passage so terrible ; for 
after this violent anguish, there appears before him the approach 
of death, the end of life, the horror of the grave, the miserable 
condition of the body, just ready to be preyed on by worms ; but 
what is more dreadful yet than all the rest, is the lamentable state 
of the poor soul, as yet shut up in the body, but knowing not 
where she shall be within two hours ; it is then you will imagine 
yourself before the judgment seat of Almighty God, and all your 
sins rising up against you ; it is then, unhappy man, you will be 
sensible of the heinousness of those crimes you committed with 



THE SINNER S GUIDE. 57 

SO little concern; it is then you will curse a thousand times the 
clay in which you sinned, and those pleasures which were the oc- 
casions of your offences: your condition will he so deplorable, 
that you will never be able sufficiently to deplore your own blind- 
ness and folly, when you shall see for what trifles (for all you have 
so foolishly set your affections on are no better) you have exposed 
yourself to the dangers of suffering most exquisite torments, which 
you will even then be sensible of: for the pleasure being now all 
over, and the judgment that is to be passed on them approaching, 
that, which of itself was little, and now ceases to be, seems noth- 
ing, and that, which of itself is of so much weight and consequence, 
being present, appears just as it is ; thus will you become sensible 
of the danger you have exposed yourself to, of losing so much 
bliss for the enjoyment of mere vanities, and which way soever 
you turn your eyes, you will see you are surrounded vnth. subjects 
, of sorrow and trouble ; for you have no time left to do penance, 
the glass of your life is run out, nor must you expect the least 
assistance from your friends or from those idols you have hitherto 
adored ; nay, what you have had the most affection for ydll be 
the greatest torment and affliction to you then. Tell me now, if 
you can, what your thoughts will be at that time, when you shall 
see yourself reduced to such extremities ? whither will you run ? 
what will you do ? or to whom will you have recourse ? To go 
back is impossible, to go forward is intolerable, to continue as 
you are is not allowed ; what is it then you will do ? Then, says 
God, by the mouth of his prophet, the sun shall go down at noon- 
day, and I will darken the earth in the clear day, and I will turn 
your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation, and 
your last day into a day of bitterness ; Amos vii. 9, 10. Is there 
any thing more dreadful than these words? God says, the sun 
shall go down at mid-day, because then the wicked having the 
multitude of their sins laid before them, and perceiving God's 
justice is beginning to shorten the course of their life, many of 
them shall be seized with such dread and despair, as to imagine 
that God has entirely removed his mercy from them. So that, 
though they are still in broad day, that is, within the bounds of 
life, a time to merit good or evil, they persuade themselves that, 
do what they can, it is lost, since it is impossible to obtain pardon. 
Fear is a very powerful passion ; it makes those things which are 
little seem great, and gives us a near view of that which is fur- 
thest from us. If a light apprehension has been able sometimes 
to do so much, what must a certain and real danger do ? Though 
they see they have a little left, and all their friends about them, 
yet they fancy they already begin to feel the torments of the 
damned in hell. They look on themselves as between life and 
death, and, grieving at the loss of the goods of this life, which 
they are just ready to part with, they begin to suffer the pains of 
8 



58 THE SINJfER's GUIDE. 

the next, which they apprehend. They think those men happy 
whom they leave behind, and envying the condition of others, in- 
crease their own misery. It is then the sun shall truly set to 
them at noon, when, which way soever they look, the way to 
heaven shall seem to be blocked up against them, and they shall 
not see so much as the least glimmering light. If they look up 
towards God's mercy, they think themselves unworthy of it ; if 
they reflect on his justice, they imagine it is now going to fall on 
them ; that till then it has been their day, but now it is the day 
of God's wrath ; if they consider their lives past, there is scarce 
one moment but what rises up in judgment against them ; if they 
reflect on the present time, they see themselves on their death- 
beds ; if they look forward, they imagine they see the judge wait- 
ing for them. What can they do, or whither can they fly from 
so many objects of fear and terror ? 

6. The prophet tells them, that God will darken the earth in 
the clear day ; which is, that those things, which they have most 
delighted in before, shall now become the greatest occasions of 
their sorrow. A man in perfect health loves to see his children, 
his friends, his family, his riches, and whatsoever else can be any 
way agreeable to him ; but this light shall be then turned into 
darkness, because all these things will be a great affliction to a 
dying man ; and there is nothing will be a greater torment to him 
than what he most delighted in. For as we naturally are pleased 
in the possession of what we love, so are we equally troubled and 
concerned at the loss of it. This is the reason why they will not 
let a man's children come near him when he is dying ; and why 
women, that are unwilling to lose their husbands, keep from them 
at this time, for fear the sight of one another should increase 
grief and sorrow. And, though the journey is so long, and the 
period of absence endless, yet grief breaks through all, and 
scarcely allows him that is departing leisure to bid his friends 
farewell. If you have ever been in this condition, you cannot 
but acknowledge all that I say to be true ; but if you have never 
yet made the experiment, believe those that have. Let them who 
have been at sea recount the dangers they have met with there ; 
Eccl. xliii. 26. 

§ II. — 7. If the circumstances which go before death are so 
frightful, what must those be which follow it ? Death has no 
sooner closed the sick man's eyes, than he is brought before the 
judgment-seat of Almighty God, to render his accounts to him, 
who will avenge himself with severity and terror for the crimes 
which have been committed against him. For the understanding 
of this, you are not to inquire of the men of the world, who, 
hving in Egypt, that is, in darkness and ignorance, are always 
exposed to mistakes and errors. Ask the saints, who dwell in 
the land of Jessen, where the light of this truth shines always in 



THE sinner's guide. 59 

its full vigor. They will tell you, not only by their words, but by 
their actions, how terrible this account will be. 

For David, though so holy a man, was so prepossessed with 
this fear, and with the just apprehensions of the account he was 
to give, that he begged of God, saying. Enter not into judgment 
with thy servant, Lord, for in thy sight no man living shall he 
justified; Ps. cxlii. 2. Arsenius was a great saint, who had 
lived a very virtuous and rigid life for several years in the desert ; 
and yet, finding that he had but a very little time to live, was 
seized with such apprehensions of this judgment, that his disci- 
ples, who were all gathered together about him, perceiving it, 
asked him this question ; "Father, are you afraid now?" Tow^hich 
the holy man made answer: "This is no new fear, which you 
observe in me, my children ; it is what I have been sensible of 
all my hfetime." They write that St. Agatho, when he was near 
his death, was seized with the same apprehensions, and, being 
asked what he could be afraid of, who had lived so virtuously, 
said, "Because the judgments of God are quite different from 
those of men." St. John Climachus gives us another po less 
dreadful example of a holy monk, which, being very remarkable, 
I will here relate it in the saint's own words. "There was a 
certain religious man," says he, "called Stephen, that lived in 
this place, after having spent a great many years in a monastery, 
where he was in much repute, on account of his tears and fast- 
ing, and where he had enriched his soul with several other excel- 
lent virtues ; but having an extreme desire to lead a solitary and 
retired life, he built himself a cell at the bottom of Mount 
Horeb, where the prophet Elias had the honor to see God. This 
man, notwithstanding his great austerity and rigor, thinking that 
what he did was not enough, but aspiring to a more rigid and 
severe way of living, went to another place called Siden, where 
some holy anchorets lived. Here he continued for some years 
in the severest and strictest life imaginable, destitute of all 
human comfort and conversation, having seated his hermitage 
about three score and ten miles from any town. But the good 
old man, towards the end of his life, came back again to his first 
cell, at the foot of Mount Horeb, having there with him two 
disciples that were natives of Palestine, who had retired thither 
not long before he came back. Within a few days after his re- 
turn, he fell into his last sickness. The day before he died, 
being in a kind of ecstacy, but with his eyes open, and gazing 
first on one side of his bed, and then on the other, just as if he 
saw persons there, who made him give an account of his life, he 
answered so loud that every person could hear him, sometimes 
saying, ' Yes, I confess it : that is true ; but I have fasted so 
many years in atonement for the sin.' Sometimes he was heard 
to say, * That is false ; you wrong me : I never did any such thing.' 



60 THE sinner's guide. 

Immediately after, ' As to that, I acknowledge it. You are m 
the right, but I have bewailed the same, and have done penance 
for it, by serving my neighbor upon such and such occasions.' 
Then again he cried out, * That is not true ; you are all impos- 
tors.' fiut to other accusations, he answered, * It is true, and I 
have nothing to say to that point, but that our God is a God of 
mercy.' Certainly this invisible judgment, being so severe, could 
not but be terrible and frightful. And what ought to make it 
more dreadful, they laid such crimes to his charge as he had 
never been guilty of. O my God ! if a hermit, after about forty 
years spent in religious and solitary life, after having obtained 
the gift of tears, declared that he had nothing to say for himself, 
as to some sins that are brought against him, what w^ill become 
of such a miserable and unhappy wretch as I am ? Nay, what 
is yet more, I have been credibly informed by several, that, 
whilst he lived in the desert, he used to feed a leopard with his 
own hands. He died as he was giving this account of himself, 
leaving us in an entire uncertainty of the end of this judgment, 
and of the sentence that was passed on him." Thus far St. John 
Climachus. By this, we may plainly see, what apprehensions a 
man that has lived idly and carelessly must be in, when he comes 
to die, since such great saints as these have been so hard put to it 
at that moment. 

8. Should you ask one, what there is in death that can affright 
such holy men, I will answer you out of St. Gregory's fourth 
book of Morals (ch. 16, 17, 18), where he says, " The saints, 
seriously considering how just the Judge is, to whom they are to 
give an account of all their actions, are continually thinking on 
the last moment of their lives, and carefully examining themselves 
on what answer they shall make to every question their Judge 
shall put to them. But if they find themselves free from all those 
sinful actions, which they might have committed, another sub- 
ject of their apprehension is, lest they should have consented to 
those bad thoughts to which man's corruption always exposes 
him. For let us suppose that the overcoming of such tempta- 
tions as lead to the performance of some sinful action, is no very 
hard matter, yet you will not find it so easy to secure yourself 
against the continual war, raised by bad thoughts. And though 
these holy men are always afraid of the secret judgments of so 
just a Judge, .yet they then particularly fear them most, when 
they are at the point of discharging the common debt of nature, 
and when they perceive themselves advancing nigher to their 
sovereign Master. But this fear of theirs is much greater, at 
that time when the soul is just going to quit the body. Then it 
is that the mind is no longer filled with idle thoughts, nor the 
imagination drawn away by impertinent fancies. Neither does 
hCj that is now done with this world, think of any thing that is 



THE sinner's guide. 61 

in it. Dying men think of nothing but themselves and God 
who is just before them. They look on every thing else as no 
concern of theirs. But if, whilst they are in this condition, they 
cannot think of any good action, which they have knowingly 
omitted, they are afraid lest they might have omitted that which 
they did not know; because they cannot pass a true judgment 
on themselves, nor have perfect knowledge of their own failings. 
This is the reason of their being: seized at death with such great 
and secret apprehensions, because they know they are on entermg 
into a state, which they shall never afterwards be able to change." 
These are St. Gregory's own words, which plainly show us there 
is much more to be feared in this judgment, and at this hour, than 
worldly men imagine. 

9. If this judgment is so rigorous, and has been so much and 
so justly dreaded by holy men, what apprehensions ought theirs 
to be, who are not so? they who have spent the greatest part 
of their lives in vanities and trifles, who have so frequently de- 
spised God and his commandments, who have scarce so much 
as ever thought of their salvation, and have taken so little pains 
to prepare themselves for their last hour? If the just man be 
ready to sink under the weight of his fear, how shall the sinner 
be able to keep up ? If the cedar of Lebanon be thus shaken, 
what will become of the reed in the ^dlderness ? And, in short, 
If, as St. Peter says, th^ just man shall scarcely be saved, where 
shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 1 Pet. iv. 18. Tell me 
now, after all this, what wall be your thoughts at that hour, when, 
having left this world, you appear before the divine tribunal, in 
a lonely, poor and naked condition, Avithout any other assist- 
ance but what your own good works will bring you, without 
any other company but that of your own conscience; and if 
your accounts fall short, how miserable will your condition 
be ? To what shame and confusion will your past neglects put 
you? The princes of Judah were, without doubt, very much 
surprised when they saw the conqueror Sesach, king of Egypt, 
putting all Jerusalem to the sword. Their present punishment 
brought them to a sense of their former crimes; and yet what 
was all this in comparison with the trouble and disorder the 
wicked shall be in, when they are near their end? What shall 
they do ? whither shall they go ? or what defence shall they be 
able to make ? Their tears will be then unprofitable to them, 
their repentance wiU not avail, their prayers will not be taken 
notice of, nor their promises of future amendment regarded : 
they will have no more time given them to do penance ; and as 
for their riches, their honors, or the respect the world gave them, 
they will signify least of all. For according to the wise man, 
riches shall not be profitable in the day of vengeance, but justice 
will deliver a man from death ; Prov. xi. 4. What will a poor 

F 



62 THE sinner's guide. 

soul do, when it sees itself surrounded with so many miseries? 
what will it do but cry out, with the royal psalmist, The sorrows 
of death have encompassed me, and the dangers of hell have 
found me out? Ps. cxiv. 3. Unhappy wretch that I am! To 
what a miserable condition have my sins reduced me ? how unex- 
pectedly has this unfortunate hour stolen on me ? how suddenly 
has it surprised me when I least thought of it ? what good will all 
my former titles and honors do me now ? All my friends and ser- 
vants, those riches and revenues which I have once been master of, 
what service can I expect from them now ? Six or seven feet of 
clay at the most, with a poor winding sheet to bury me in, is to be 
my whole inheritance ; and to complete my misery, all that money 
I have been so long hoarding up, with so much pains and injustice, 
I must now leave behind me, to be squandered away by an extrava- 
gant heir, whilst the sins I have been guilty of in getting it, will 
pursue me to the next world to condemn me to eternal torments. 
Where is now the delight I took in all my former recreations and 
pleasures ? They are now at an end for ever, and nothing but the 
pangs of them remain ; that is, the scruples and remorse of my guilty 
conscience, the stings of which pierce my very heart, and will tor- 
ment me for all eternity. Why did I not rather employ my time in 
preparing myself for this last hour ? How often have I been fore- 
warned of what I suffer, but would never give ear to the advice ? 
Why have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; and 
have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to 
them that instructed me ? Prov. v. 12, 13. I have committed all 
kinds of sins and iniquities, in the very bosom of the church, and in 
the sight of all the world. 

10. See here what anxieties and disquietudes the wicked will 
be rent with. See here what a burden their own thoughts will be 
to them in this miserable condition. But to preserve you from fall- 
ing into the same misfortunes, I here advise you to gather, from 
what has been said, these three considerations, and to keep them 
continually in your mind. The first is, that of the trouble you will 
be in at the hour of your death, for all those sins you have com- 
mitted against God during the whole course of your life. The 
second is, how you will wish to have served him, that he might be 
favorable to you at this moment. The last is, what a rigid penance 
you would vdllingly undergo in this world, if you could but obtain 
the favor of returning thither, that you might begin, from that very 
moment, to live as you will then desire to have lived before. 



THE sinner's guide. 63 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Of the, eighth Motive that obliges us to the Pursuit of Virtue, 
which is, the last Judgment, the second of the four last Things. 

1. As soon as ever the soul has left the body, immediately fol- 
lows its particular judgment, and after that, the general one of all 
mankind together ; at which time shall be accomphshed what the 
apostle said: We must all appear before the judgment-seat of 
Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, 
according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil ; 2 Cor. v. 
10. Having treated, in another place, of those dreadful signs, 
which are to be the forerunners of the general judgment-day, I 
shall speak here of nothing but that severe and exact account, 
which will be then required from us, and of what is to follow, 
that this may teach man how much he is obHged to the pursuit of 
virtue. 

2. As to the first, which is the strict inquiry God will make 
into all our actions, it is so frightful, that there was nothing sur- 
prised holy Job more than to consider, that God, whose majesty 
is so great, could show so much rigor towards man, notwithstand- 
ing his being so frail a creature, as to set down every word, every 
thought, every motion of his, in his book of justice, to require a 
particular account thereof. After having said a great deal to this 
purpose, he goes on thus : Why dost thou hide thy face, and 
lookest upon me as thy enemy ? Thou exercisest thy power against 
a leaf which is driven to and fro by the wind, and thou pursuest 
the dry stubble. For thou writest bitter things against me, and 
hast a mind to destroy me for the sins of my youth ; thou hast 
put my feet in the stoc/cs, and hast observed all my paths, and hast 
taken notice of the steps of my feet. I who am to be consumed as 
a rotten thing, and as a garment that is moth-eaten. Job xiii. 24, 
25, 26, 27, 28. 

Immediately after he adds, Man that is born of a woman, and 
has but a short time to live, is full of miseries. He comes forth 
like a flower, and is trodden down ; he flies away like a shadow, 
and never continues in the same state. And dost thou think fit to 
open thy eyes upon such a one, and to bring him into judgment 
with thee ? Who can make that clean which is conceived of unclean 
seed ? Who but thou alone ? Job xiv. 1, 2, 3, 4. These are the 
terrible words which Job spoke, filled with surprise and astonish- 
ment at the severity the divine justice exercises against so poor 
and helpless a creature as is man ; against one so bent on any 
thing that is evil, and that drinks up iniquity like water. For 
that God should be so severe to the angels, who are spiritual, 
and very perfect creatures, is not to be a matter of so much 
wonder : but for his justice to call men, whose vicious inclina- 
tions are numberless, to so strict an account, as not to pass over 



64 THE sinner's guide. 

any one circumstance of their whole lives, not to leave out any 
one idle word, nor so much as one moment of time that has been 
misemployed, without a very narrow inquiry into it, is a subject 
of the greatest amazement. For who can hear these words of 
our Sa viour without astonishment ? I say unto you, that every 
idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it 
in the day of judgment; Matt. xii. 36. If we are to give an ac- 
count of such words as these are, that hurt nobody, what an 
examination will be made into lewd discourses, unchaste thoughts, 
bloody hands, and lascivious looks ? What, in short, into all that 
time men have spent in committing sinful actions ? And if this 
be true, as doubtless it is, what can a man say of the severity of 
this judgment, but will fall far short of it ? What a fright will 
a poor man be in, to see himself accused before so venerable an 
assembly, of some light w^ord he spoke in his life-time, without any 
design or intention ? Who will not be surprised at so stange a 
charge ? or who would have dared to affirm this, had not God 
himself said it ? Was there ever any prince that called his servant 
to account for the loss of a pin or a needle ? O the excellence of 
the Christian religion ! what perfection and purity dost thou teach, 
and how strict an account wilt thou require of it, and with how 
rigorous a judgment wilt thou examine into it ! 

3. Now if this judgment-day be so great a subject of all men's 
astonishment, what shame and confusion must sinners be then put 
to ? For all the wickedness they have ever committed, with so 
much caution and privacy in their most secret closets, and all the 
impurities they have ever been defiled with, and all the evil that 
has lain hid in the darkest recesses of their souls, shall be then made 
public, and exposed to the view of all the world. Is there any 
man now, whose conscience is so clear, as not to begin to blush 
and be afraid of this confusion ? We see how often it happens, 
that men, upon no other motive but that of a sinful and criminal 
shame, will not discover their secret sins to their confessors, not 
even in confession, where the obligation to secrecy is so inviolable, 
and the tie so sacred. They, for no other reason but this, choose 
rather to let their souls be pressed down under the weight of their 
sins, than to undergo the shame of revealing them. How great, 
then, will that shame be, which men shall be put to before God, 
and in the sight of all ages, past, present and to come? The 
prophet tells us this confusion will be so extraordinary, that the 
wicked shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills. Fall 
upon us, that we may not be exposed to such shame ; Hos. x. 8. 

4. But what horror will they be filled with, at the hearing of 
this last sentence thundered out against them: Depart from me, 
ye accursed, into everlasting fire, which has been, prepared for the 
devil and his angels; Matt. xxv. 41. What will the damned 
think at the sound of those dreadful words ? Jf, says Job, we 
can scarce endure the least sound of his voice, who shall he able to 



THE sinner's guide. Q§ 

look against the thunder of his greatness ? Job xxvi. 14. This 
word will carry such force along with it, that it will make the 
earth open in a moment, to swallow up and bury in its bowels 
those who, as the same Job says (ch. xxi. 12), Take the timbrel 
and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ, St. John, in his 
Revelations, describes this fall in these words : " I saw an angel 
come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was 
enlightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong 
voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, it is fallen, and is be- 
come the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, 
and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Revel, xviii. 
1, 2. In the same place the holy evangelist adds : " And a 
mighty angel took up a stone like a mill-stone, and cast it into 
the sea, saying. Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon 
be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." After the 
same manner shall the wicked, who are to be understood here by 
Babylon, be flung into the dungeon of everlasting darkness and 
confusion. 

5. But what tongue shall be able to express the multitude of tor- 
ments they are to suffer there ? Their bodies shall burn in scorch- 
ing flames, which shall never be extinguished ; the worm of con- 
science shall perpetually gnaw and tear their very souls in pieces, 
without ever being tired or sated. It is there that weeping, and 
wailing, and gnashing of teeth, we are so often threatened with in 
holy scripture, shall never cease. There it is that the damned, 
hurried on with rage and despair, shall vent their fury on God 
and themselves, biting off their flesh, bursting their hearts with 
sighs and grief, breaking their teeth with grinning and vexation, 
like madmen pulling their owti limbs in pieces, and continually 
blaspheming that just God who has condemned them to such tor- 
ments. There every one of them will a thousand times curse the 
hour of his birth, frequently repeating, though with a different 
spirit, these words of holy Job : " Let the day perish wherein 
I was born, and the night in which it was said, A man-child is 
conceived. Let that day be turned into darkness, let not God 
regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let 
darkness and the shadow of death obscure it, let a cloud over- 
cast it, and let it be wrapt up in terror. As for that night, let a 
dark tempest seize upon it, let it not be reckoned among the days 
of the year, nor come into the number of the months. Why died 
I not in the womb ? Why did I not give up the ghost when I 
came out of the belly ? Why was I placed upon the knee ? or 
why had I the breast to suck ?" Job iii. 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12. These 
are the complaints the damned shall make in hell for all eternity. 
O unhappy tongues, which shall never utter any thing but^ blas- 
phemies ! O wretched ears, which shall never hear any thing but 
frightful shrieks and groans ! O unhappy eyes, which shall never 
9 F2 



66 THE sinner's GUIBE. 

see any thing but objects of misery ! O wretched bodies, which, 
instead of being refreshed, shall be eternally burning in hell- 
fiames ! What a condition will those sensual persons be in then, 
who have spent all their days in sports and deHghts ? O ! for 
how short and how fleeting a pleasure have they brought on 
themselves an endless train of miseries? Foolish and senseless 
creatures! what do all your pastimes, which lasted so short a 
time, avail you, when the consequence is an eternity of pain and 
sorrow? what is now become of all your riches and treasures? 
where are now your delights ? Your seven fruitful years are now 
over, and they are followed by seven years of such barrenness 
that your former abundance is all swallowed up, and not the least 
sign or menlory of it remains. Your honor is lost, and your 
happiness drowned, in that ocean of sorrow. You are reduced to 
such extremity as not to be allowed one single drop of water to 
quench the scorching thirst which parches up your very bowels ; 
nay, your past prosperity is so far from giving you any comfort 
now, that it is rather one of your greatest torments. For then 
shall be fulfilled this saying of Job : " The delight of the wicked 
shall be changed into worms" (Job xxiv. 20) ; which, according 
to St. Gregory will happen, when the remembrance of their past 
pleasures shall be an increase of their present torments : when 
they shall call to mind the days they have seen, and those they 
now see ; thus unhappily experiencing, at their own cost, that, 
for things of so short a continuance, they suffer miseries which 
shall never have an end. Then they will plainly see how the 
enemy has deceived them, and being now, though too late, sensi- 
ble of their folly, they will begin to make use of these words in 
the book of Wisdom : " We fools have wandered out of the way 
of truth, and the light of justice has not shined upon us, and the 
sun of understanding has not rose upon us. We have wearied 
ourselves in the way of wickedness and destruction, we have 
walked through hard ways ; but as for the way of the Lord we 
have not known it ;*' Wisd. v. 6, 7. These are to be the per- 
petual complaints of the damned, this their repentance, this their 
sorrow ; but all to no purpose, for the time of improving is now past. 
6. The due consideration of these things cannot but excite us 
to the love of virtue. And, therefore, St. Chrysostom often 
makes use of these arguments in his homilies, to exhort us to it. 
In one of them he says, " That you may prepare your soul in 
time, to be the temple and abode of God, call to mind the dread- 
ful day when we are to appear before the throne of Jesus Christ, 
to give an account to him of all our actions. Consider in what 
manner this Lord will come to judge the living and the dead. 
Consider how many thousands of angels will attend him. Im- 
agine you already hear the sound of that frightful but irrevo- 
cable sentence, which Jesus Christ will pass against the world. 



THE sinner's guide. 07 

Consider that, as soon as this sentence shall be given, sorae will 
be tumbled headlong into outward darkness ; others, though they 
have taken a great deal of pains for the preserving of their virgin- 
ity, shall have the gates of heaven shut on them ; some shall be 
tied up like bundles of weeds, and flung into the fire ; others again 
shall be delivered up as a prey, to the worm which will never die, 
and condemned to everlasting wailing and gnashing of teeth/' 
We are all of us convinced of the truth of these things ; why then 
do not we, whilst we have time, cry out with the prophet. Who 
will give water to my head, and fountains of tears to my eyes, 
and I will weep day and night ? Jer. ix. 1. Let us, therefore, 
hasten and endeavour, before it is too late, to prevent the judg- 
ment by a confession of our sins : it is written : Who shall confoss 
to you, Lord, in hell? Ps. vi. 6. 

7. Let us consider, further, that God has given us two eyes, 
two ears, two feet and two hands, that, if we should happen to 
lose the use of any one of these members, the other may still 
serve us. But he has given us but one soul, so that, if we lose 
that, we have no other left us to enjoy eternal glory. Let it, there- 
fore, be our main concern to preserve it, for this soul must be one 
day saved or damned with the body for ever, and must appear 
before the tribunal of our great God, where, if you would excuse 
yourself, saying, you were dazzled with the false glittering of 
money, the judge will answer, that he forewarned you of this 
danger, when he said. What doth it profit a man, if he gain the 
whole world, if he loses his own soul? Matt. xiv. 26. Should 
you say, the devil seduced me, he w^ill tell you, that Eve did not 
clear herself by saying, it was the serpent that deceived her ; 
Gen iii. 

8. Look into the Scriptures, and consider the prophet Jere- 
miah's vision : first he saw a watching-rod, and then a great caul- 
dron boiling over a hot fire, to signify how God dealt with men. 
First he threatens, and then, if that will not do, punishes them. 
Nor is it to be doubted, but that he who will not submit to the 
correction of the rod, shall be made to undergo the torture of 
the cauldron. Read but the gospel, and you will see that no- 
body offered to intercede for those unhappy wretches whom our 
Saviour condemned. Brothers did not speak for their brothers, 
nor friends for their friends ; the father did not stand up for his 
son, nor the son for his father. But what do I speak of these, 
who were sinful men, since neither Noe, Daniel or Job, notwith- 
standing all their virtue and piety, will be able to alter the sen- 
tence once given by the judge ? Ezech. xxvi. See whether any 
one durst so much as open his mouth in favor of him, who was 
turned away from the wedding-dinner; Matt. xxii. 11, 12, 13, 
and XXV. 11, 12, 13. See whether any body ever spoke one word 
for that servant who would not trade with the talent his master 
intrusted him with. Which of all those five virgins, that could 



68*' THE sinner's guide. 

not get any admittance into heaven, ever found any one that un- 
dertook to plead her cause ? Jesus Christ himself called them 
fools, for managing themselves so unwisely as, after having 
despised the delights of the flesh, and extinguished the fire of 
concupiscence, nay, after having observed the great precept of 
virginity, to neglect the commandment of humility, which seems 
to be much easier, and to take a pride in their chastity. Con- 
. sider whether the rich man, who took no pity on Lazarus, could 
obtain one single drop of water, which he begged of the patri- 
arch Abraham, as poor a comfort as it was, to mitigate those 
scorching flames that so tormented him; Luke xvi. Why then 
will we not charitably assist each other ? why will we not praise 
and glorify God before the sun of his justice is set, and before he 
removes his light from our eyes ? We had much better let our 
tongues be parched \\dth fasting for the short remainder of this 
life, than, having satisfied them in this world, to let them be re- 
duced to the necessity of begging a drop of water in the next, 
out of all possibility of obtaining it. If we are so nice and ten- 
der here, that we cannot suffer the heat of a light fever the space 
of three days, how shall we be able to endure those eternal burn- 
ings ? If the sentence of death passed on us by a mortal judge, 
who cannot take away above forty or fifty years of our life at 
furthest, be so terrible, w^hy do not we tremble at the sentence 
that is to be given by a Judge, in whose power it is to deprive us 
of life everlasting ? It terrifies us to see the punishments inflicted 
on malefactors here on earth, to see the executioners drag them 
away by force, scourge, disjoint, quarter, tear or burn them; 
and yet what is this but a mere dream or shadow, in comparison 
to the pains of hell ? For death puts an end to all these suffer- 
ings, but there the worm of conscience never dies, there life is 
never at an end; the tormentors are never tired, and the fire 
never is put out. Let us, therefore, set what we will against this 
misery, let it be fire or sword, wild beasts, or any other kind of 
torment whatever ; to this it will appear but as an imperfect draft 
or representation. 

9. What wdll these unhappy wretches do, when they shall see 
themselves deprived of so many blessings, and condemned to suf- 
fer such unspeakable miseries ? What will they say ? How will 
they cry out against themselves ? How horribly will they sigh 
and groan, and yet to what little purpose ? For neither is the 
sailor useful after he has lost his vessel, nor the physician when 
his patient is dead. It is then — but too late, alas ! — they will begin 
to reflect on their sins, and to say. We should have looked better 
to ourselves, and not fallen into this deplorable state. Alas! how 
often have we been told of this, and would take no notice of it ! 
The Jews shall then know him, who came in the name of the 
Lord, but it shall not avail them, because they would not know 
fhim when this knowledge might have been beneficial to them. 



THE SINNER S GUIDE. 



.. ^ 



But what shall we, miserable creatures, be able to say for our- 
selves, when heaven and earth, the sun and moon, night and day, 
nay, the whole world, shall cry out against us, and be witnesses 
of the sins we have committed ? But should every thing else be 
silent, we have still our consciences to rise up against and accuse 
us. This is almost all taken out of St. John Chrysostom, and is 
sufficient to show us how terrible the idea of this dreadful day 
must be to those persons, who have not governed themselves by 
the dictates of reason and virtue. St. Ambrose, as severely as 
he searched into his own actions, gives us plainly to understand, 
in his commentaries on St. Luke, that this was his sentiment : his 
words are these: "Wo unto me, O Lord, if I do not bewail my 
sins ; if I do not rise at midnight to praise thy holy name, if I de- 
ceive my neighbor, or if I speak against the truth, because the axe 
is now laid to the root of the tree." Let him, therefore, who is in 
the state of grace, endeavor to bring forth the fruits of justice ; let 
him who is m the state of sin, endeavor to bring forth the fruits 
of penance. For the Lord is nigh at hand, and comes to gather 
in his fruit, and will give life to those who work faithfully and 
profitably, and death to them who are idle and unserviceable. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Of the ninth Motive that obliges us to Virtue, which is, Heaven, 
the third of the four last Things. 

1. Any one of these considerations, we have here proposed, 
should suffice to persuade us to the love of virtue. But because 
the heart of man is so stubborn, that very often all of them together 
are not able to prevail on it, I will here add another motive, no 
less powerful than any of the others ; that is the happiness and 
reward promised to a good life, which is, the possession of ever- 
lasting glory : wherein two things particularly occur to be taken % 
notice of ; one is, the beauty of the place itself, which is heaven ; 
the other, the glory and excellency of the King, who keeps his 
residence there with all his elect. 

As for the first, though no tongue is able to express the beauty 
of this place, yet we will endeavor to guess at it as well as we 
can, and to discover as it were, at a distance, some part of it. 
The first thing then to be considered is, the end for which God 
created this excellent frame ; for, generally, the best way of know- 
ing the worth of a thing is, to inquire into the design of it. 
Now the design of this place is to make known God's glory. For 
though,, as Solomon says. The Lord has made all things for him- 
self (Prov. xvi. 4), it is plain, nevertheless, that he particularly 
made this place for this end, because it is here that he manifests 
the greatness and splendor of his glory in a more than ordinary 



70 THE sinner's guide. 

manner. Therefore, as the great king Ahasuerus (Esther!.), who 
reigned over an hundred and twenty-seven provinces, made a 
sumptuous feast in the city of Suza, the metropoUs of his empire, 
which lasted a hundred and four-score days, with all the costs and 
state imaginable, to let his subjects see how powerful and how 
rich he was ; so this almighty King is pleased to make a noble 
feast in heaven, not for a hundred and four-score days only, but 
for all eternity, to show the infinite immensity of his riches, his 
wisdom, his bounty and his goodness. This is the feast Isaias 
speaks of, when he says. In this mountairi shall the Lord of hosts 
make unto this people a feast of fat things y a feast of wines on 
the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well 
refi7ied (Isaias xxv. 6) ; that is to say, of most rich and delicious 
things. If God has prepared this banquet to make the greatness, 
of his glory known, we must needs imagine, that since this glory 
of his is so great, the beauty of the place where he resides is pro- 
portionable to it. 

2. We shall better understand this, if we but examine into the 
power and riches of the Lord who has chosen it for his residence. 
As to his power, it is so great, that he created the whole world 
out of nothing with one word, and with one word can destroy it 
again whensoever he please. Nay, it reaches so far, that with one 
single word he could have created not only one world, but millions 
of them, and have reduced them to nothing with another. And 
what is more considerable yet, whatsoever he has made has cost 
him no pains nor trouble, nor was it harder to him to create the 
noblest seraphim than it was to create the least insect, because this 
infinite Power can do whatsoever it has a mind to do, and what- 
soever it has a mind to do it does purely of its own will, and is 
neither tired by the greatest works nor eased by the least. If this 
Lord is so powerful, if the glory of his holy name is so great, and 
if he has such a love for his own glory, how beautiful must that 
place or that banquet consequently be, which he has prepared to 
show us his glory ? What is there wanting towards the perfection 
of this great work ? There can be no want of hands, because the 
Workman is infinitely powerful ; no want of skill, because he is 
infinitely wise ; no want of will, because he is infinitely good ; no 
want of wealth, because he is infinitely rich. If, then, all things 
be so well disposed to make it great, what must that work be, 
which is performed by the omnipotence of the Father, by the wis- 
dom of the Son, and by the goodness of the Holy Ghost ? — where 
goodness inclines, wisdom directs, and omnipotence performs all 
that an infinite goodness desires, and an infinite wisdom prescribes, 
though all these things are the same in the same divine Persons. 

3. There is another remarkable thing yet to be considered in 
this matter, which is, that God has prepared this stately place, 
not only for his own honor, but also for the glory of all his elect. 



THE sinner's guide. 71 

How solicitous God is for them, and for the effecting of all he 
has promised in their behalf, when he said, Whosoeve?' shall glo- 
rify me, I will glorify him (1 Kings ii. 30), plainly appears by 
his actions, since he has put every thing in the world under their 
command, even whilst they are in this life. How^ wonderful was 
it to see Josue command the sun to stand still in the midst of its 
course, and to make it stop, as if he had the direction of the 
whole world in his power ! God, as the Scripture says, obeying 
the voice of a man : Jos. x. 14. How strange was it to see the 
prophet Isaias bid king Ezechias (Isa. xxxiii. 8) choose whether 
he would have the sun go back ten degrees upon the dial, or 
forward, for either should be performed ! How prodigious was 
it to see the prophet Elias (3 Kings xvii. 1, and xviii. 43, &c.) 
lock up the waters and clouds of heaven as long as he thought 
fit ; and then command them, by virtue of his word and prayer, 
to pour down their rain again ! Nor is it during their life-time 
only that God has given his saints such powers ; he continues 
the same after their death, and confers it on their very bones and 
ashes ; 4 Kings xiii. 21. Who can forbear praising God, when 
he reads of the prophet Elisha's bones raising a dead man to life, 
who was accidentally thrown by a band of highwaymen into the 
prophet's grave ? Who will deny that God bestows great favors 
on his saints, when he hears that the sea opened for three miles 
together, the day that St. Clement was martyred, that so those 
persons who had mind to see the relics of one that had suffered 
for Christ's sake, might pass over ? God has been pleased to in- 
spire the whole church to institute a feast in honor of St. Peter's 
chains, that we may see what an esteem he has for the bodies of 
the saints, since he commanded us to pay such solemn respect 
for the fetters they wore. But what is all this in comparison 
with the honor which God did not only to this apostle's fetters, 
not only to his bones or body, but to his very shadow ; which, as 
St. Luke affirms in the Acts (ch. v. 15), cured all persons of their 
distempers that could come within the reach of it. O God I how 
infinitely art thou to be admired ! O God ! how infinitely good 
art thou, and with what an infinite honor dost thou reward thy 
saints ! Thou hast given this man what thou never made use of 
thyself ; for nobody ever saw Jesus Christ curing the sick with his 
shadow. Now if it be certain that God has such a love for his 
saints, even at such a time and in such a place too as is designed 
for them to toil and labor in, and not to receive their rewards "; 
how great must that glory be which he has prepared to honor 
them with, and for which he w411 be honored and praised in them ! 
What may we imagine he, who has so great a desire to glorify 
them, and who, at the same time, both can and knows best how to 
do whatsoever is capable of contributing to their glory, has pre- 
pared and provided for this end ? 

4. Consider, further, how liberal God is in rewarding services 



72 THE sinner's guide. 

done him. He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, whom 
he loved so tenderly ; and just as the patriarch was on the point 
of complying with his command, his divine goodness stopped him, 
and would not let him proceed any further. The angel of 
the Lord, said to him, Lay not thy hand upon the hoy, neither do 
thou any thing to him ; now I know that thou fear est God, and 
hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake. By my own 
self have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this 
thing, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake, I 
will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, 
and as the sand that is by the sea shore : thy seed shall possess the 
gates of their enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the 
earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. Gen. xxii. 12, 
16, 17, 18. Was not this service well requited ? It is truly a 
return that becomes God, who ought to appear like himself in all 
things, as well in the favors he bestows, as in the punishments he 
inflicts. 

David began one night to consider with himself, that he had a 
house to dwell in, and the ark of God had none, and thereupon 
resolved to build one for it. But God sent the prophet Nathan 
to him the next morning with this message: Because thou hast 
thought of building me a house, I swear to thee, that I vjill build 
one for thee and thy posterity, which shall remain for ever ; and I 
will give thee a kingdom which shall have no end, nor will I ever 
remove my mercies from it ; 2 Kings vii. ; 3 Kings viii.; 1 Chron. 
xviii. This was the promise God made David ; nor did he fail 
in the performance of it, for the kingdom of Israel was governed 
by the princes of the house of David down to the coming of our 
Saviour, who reigns there now, and will there reign for all eter- 
nity. What follows on this is, that heaven is nothing else but 
the general reward which God gives his saints, for all the ser- 
vices they have done him ; and would we but at the same time 
consider how generous God is, in the present he makes, we 
might give some kind of guess at least at the qualities and con- 
ditions of this glory; though it is an abyss too deep for us to 
fathom. 

5. Another way of passing a judgment on it is, to reflect on 
the price God has thought fit it should be purchased at for us. 
For since he has been so liberal to us, we must not think he 
would set a greater value on things than they are worth in them- 
selves. Yet that we might, after we had sinned, be made par- 
takers of this glory, nothing less than the blood and death of his 
only Son could procure it for us. So that God has been pleased 
to die the death of man, that man might live the life of God. 
God has suffered those afflictions and tribulations which w^ere 
due to man, that man should enjoy the rest and ease that be- 
longed to God. Nor would man have ever been honored with 
a place among the choir of angels, had not God been nailed to 



THE sinner's guide. 73 

the cross betwixt two thieves. How great a favor, then, must 
this be, for the procuring of which a God has sweated blood, has 
been taken prisoner, has been scourged, spit upon and buffeted ; 
and, after all, has been fastened to a cross ! What can that be, 
which God, who is so generous, has prepared, to procure at so 
great a rate ? Could a man but fathom this abyss, he could have 
no better way of finding out the greatness of eternal glory. 

But besides all this, God requires of us as much as possibly can 
be required of man, which is, that we take up our cross and follow 
him ; and if our right eye offend us, we pluck it out ; that we 
have no further concern for father or mother, nor regard any thing 
in this world, be it what it will, if it be consistent with whatso- 
ever God shall command us. And after we have punctually com- 
plied with all that he enjoins, he tells us he bestows this glory 
gratis. This is what he says, in St. John : / am Alpha and 
Omega; the Beginning and the End. To him that thirsteth I 
will give of the fountain of the water of life, free cost. Apoc. 
xxi. 6. How great a favor must this be, when God requires so 
much for it ; and yet, when w^e have given him all we can, he tells 
us himself, he gives it to us for nothing. I say, for nothing, with 
respect to what our actions are worth in themselves, when sepa- 
rated from the value grace puts on them. Tell me now, if this 
Lord is so liberal in granting of his favors ; if he has been so good 
as to bestow upon every one so many several kinds of benefits 
even in this life ; if every creature, both in heaven and earth, has 
been created for man's use in general ; if he has given the sinner 
as well as the just, the bad man as well as the good, a free and 
common possession of this world, how shall we be able to rate 
those inexhaustible riches, which he has laid up for none but the 
just ? How will he, who has been so generous in conferring of 
his favors on those who have not deserved them, reward those to 
w^hom his graces are in some manner due ? How noble must he 
be in requiting services done him, who has been always so forward 
in bestovdng of his mercies ! And if he is so bountiful in his gifts 
and presents, how magnificent will he be in the returns he makes ! 
It is certain we can neither express nor conceive the glory he will 
bestow on the grateful, since he has here laid so many obligations 
on the unthankful. 

§ I. — 6. Something of this glory may be further discovered 
by the situation and height of the place designed for it, which is 
not only the most capacious, but the noblest and most beautiful 
of all the rest. It is called in the Scripture, the land of the 
living. Whence we are to infer, that the land we now hve in 
is the land of the dying. If, therefore, it is certain, there are so 
many excellent and curious things in this country of the dying, 
what must there be where those persons reside who are to live 
for ever ? Look about, in every quarter of the world, and con- 
10 G 



74 THE sinner's guide. 

sider how many beautiful objects there are in it. Observe the 
greatness of the heavens, the brightness of the sun, moon and 
stars, the beauteousness of the earth and of the trees, of birds, 
and other creatures. Consider how pleasant the plain and open 
fields are : how delightful the mountains, with their unevenness ; 
the valleys, w^ith their greenness ; and how the springs and rivers, 
which are dispersed and scattered, like so many veins throughout 
the whole body of the earth, contribute with their freshness to its 
beauty. Reflect on the vast extent of the seas, which have such 
a great variety of wonders in them. What are the lakes and pools 
of pure water, but, as it were, the eyes of the earth, or the mirrors 
of the heavens ? Or what can we think of the verdant meadows, 
interwoven with roses and other flowers, but that they resemble 
the firmament all bespangled with stars in a clear night ? What 
shall we say of the mines of gold and silver, and other rich metals, of 
rubies, emeralds, diamonds and other precious stones, which seem 
to stand in competition with the stars themselves, for a glittering 
lustre and beauty ? What shall we say of that variety of colors 
which is to be seen in birds, in beasts, in flowers, and in an infinite 
number of other wonderful objects? Besides all this, art has 
added to the perfections of nature, and so improved the beauty of 
all things. Hence come those works, which are so pleasing to 
the eye, glittering with gold and precious stones, noble paintings, 
delightful gardens, royal garments, stately structures adorned with 
gold and marble, and innumerable things of other sorts. If, then, 
there are so many, and such delights in this, which is the lowest 
of all the elements, and the land of the dying, what must there be, 
in that sublime place, which as far exceeds all the other heavens 
and elements, in riches, honor, beauty, and all kinds of perfec- 
tions, as it does in height! If we consider how much those 
beauties of the heavens, which are visible to our eyes, as the sun, 
moon and stars, surpass those of this lower world in brightness, 
in form, and in duration, how glorious must we imagine those of 
the next world to be, which are only to be seen with immortal 
eyes I All we are able to conceive or think will come infinitely 
short of them. 

7. We know man must have three different places of habita- 
tion, answering to the three different states of life. His first 
place of habitation is his mother's womb after his conception; 
his second is the world he lives in after his birth ; his third is 
heaven, where he is placed after his death, if he has lived a good 
life. These three several places bear some sort of proportion to 
one another, so that the third has, in an infinite degree, all those 
advantages over the second, which the second has over the first, 
as well in duration, greatness and beauty, as in all other quali- 
ties whatsoever. As to the duration it is visible, for the length 
of life, in the first place, is nine months ; in the second, it some- 



THE sinner's guide. 76 

times extend to a hundred years; but in the third, it lasts for 
eternity. The same is to be said of the largeness of the first 
place, which has no greater extent than that of a woman's womb ; 
the second is no narrower than the whole world itself; and as 
for the greatness of the third, the best rule we have, whereby to 
judge of it is, the wide disproportion which is between the first 
and the second place ; nor does it less excel those other places 
in beauty, riches, and all other perfections and accomplishments, 
most proper to recommend it to us, than it does in extent and 
duration. If, therefore, this world of ours be so great and glo- 
rious as we have represented it, and if, notwithstanding, the 
other we have been speaking of, be as far above it as we said it 
is, how charming must its beauty be, and how vast and spacious 
its extent ! This we may discover by the great difference there 
ns between the inhabitants of both places, because the stateliness 
of a building should hold a proportion Avith the quality of the 
person that is to live in it. We are to consider, then, that the 
place we live in is the land of the dying, the other of the living ; 
the one is the habitation of sinners, the other of saints ; the one 
is the dwelling-place of men, the other of angels ; the one is a 
place for penitents, the other for those who are justified ; the one 
is the field of battle, the other the city of triumph. In the one, 
to conclude, there are enemies as well as friends ; whilst there are 
none but friends in the other, and those are no other but the elect 
themselves. The same difference, that is between the inhabi- 
tants of these two places, is between the places themselves. For 
God has created all places suitable to the quality of the persons 
they are designed for. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O 
city of God ; Ps. Ixxxvi. Thou art unmeasurable in thy ex- 
tent, and most stately in thy structure. The matter which thou 
art made of is most precious, the people that live in thee are 
most noble ; all thy employments are delightful, all sorts of goods 
abound in thee, nor is there any kind of misery w^hatsoever, 
which thou art not entirely secure from. Thou art very great in 
every thing, because he who made thee is very great, because the 
end which he designed thee for is very noble, and because those 
citizens, for whose sake he has created thee, are the most honor- 
able of all mankind. 

^ 8. All we have hitherto said relates only to the accidental 
glory of the saints, besides which there is another sort called 
essential glory, infinitely beyond the accidental. This essential 
glory consists in seeing and enjoying God himself, which St. 
Augustine speaks of, when he says, " that virtue shall be re- 
warded with no less a price than with God himself, the giver of all 
earthly virtue, whom we shall see for all eternity, whom we shall 
love without ever being cloyed, and whom we shall praise with- 
out ever giving over." So that this is the greatest reward we 
can receive ; for it is neither heaven nor earth, nor sea, nor any 



76 THE sinner's guide. 

created being whatsoever ; but it is God himself, who, notwith- 
standing his being free from all kind of mixture, contains within 
himself all that is good and perfect. For the understanding of 
this point, you must conceive, that one of the greatest mysteries 
in this divine substance is, that it comprehends within itself, in 
an infinitely eminent degree, the perfections of all the creatures, 
though, at the same time, it is a most pure Being: because God 
having created them all, and directed them to their last end, he 
must of necessity possess what he gives to others. Whence it 
follows, that the blessed shall enjoy and behold all things in him, 
each in proportion to the glory he shall be partaker of. For as 
the creatures serve us now instead of a mirror, in which we may 
behold some part of God's beauty, so God himself will, at that 
time, be the glass wherein we shall see the beauty of the crea- 
tures, but in a much more perfect manner than if we saw them 
in themselves. Thus God will be the universal happiness of all 
the saints, he will be their complete felicity and the accomplish- 
ment of all their desires ; he will then be a mirror to our eyes, 
music to our ears, sweetness to our taste, and a most pleasing 
perfume to our nostrils. In him we shall behold all the variety 
of the several times and seasons of the year, the freshness of the 
spring, the clearness of the summer, the plenty of the autumn, 
and the repose of the winter. There is nothing, in short, that 
can please all the senses of our bodies, or the faculties of our 
souls, which we shall not meet with in him. " It is in him," says 
St. Bernard, " we shall find the fulness of light for our under- 
standing, the abundance of peace for our wills, and the continua- 
tion of eternity for our memories." There the wisdom of Solomon 
will appear but folly, the beauty of Absalom deformity, the strength 
of Samson weakness, the long lives of the old patriarchs a sh6rt 
mortality, and the riches of all the kings of the earth mere poverty 
and want. 

9. If, as most certainly it is, all this be true, why do you stay 
to look for straws in Egypt, and to drink muddy water in filthy 
puddles, when you should be going on toward this spring-head 
of happiness, this fountain of living waters ? Why do you beg 
by parcels, what you may find heaped up together, and more 
abundantly in this great all ? If you aim at pleasures, raise up 
your heart, and consider how delightful this good must be which 
contains in itself all goods and pleasures. If you are in love 
with this created life, how much greater satisfaction will you take 
in that life which has created every thing! If the health you 
enjoy be a pleasure to you, how much more will you be pleased 
with him who is himself the Author of health ! If you are taken 
with the knowledge of the creatures, how much more will you 
be with that of the Creator ! If beauty charms you, he it is 
w^hose beauty the sun and moon admire. If nobility be what 
you seek after, he is the very source and origin of all that is 



THE sinner's guide. 77 

noble ; if you wish for long life, he is life everlasting ; if plenty 
be your desire, he is the fulness of all riches ; if you love music 
and charming voices, the angels are continually singing in his 
presence ; if you hunt after company and conversation, you will 
there have the company of all the blessed, who have but one 
heart and one soul. If you aim at honorable employments and 
covet riches, they are both to be found in the house of God ; if, 
in fine, you would be freed from all kinds of miseries and suffer- 
ings, it is there you will be happily delivered from them, and that 
for ever. God commanded his people in the old law, to circum- 
cise their children on the eighth day, giving us thereby to under- 
stand that on the eighth day, that is the day of the general 
resurrection, which is to follow the week of this life, he will 
circumcise and cut off all the miseries of those persons who shall 
have circumcised themselves, and have put a stop to all their 
inordinate desires, who shall have retrenched all their superflu- 
ities and have overcome their feelings for his sake. What can 
be happier than such a life as this, which is free from all misery 
and trouble, and which, as St. Augustine says, shall never be 
exposed to any fear or poverty, indisposition or sickness ; where 
there never shall be any anger or envy, where we shall never 
stand in need of eating and drinking, never covet worldly prefer- 
ments and honors, never be afraid of devils, never dread the 
pains of hell, nor apprehend the death either of the body or of 
the soul ; for we shall live there with all manner of content and 
satisfaction, enjoying the dehghts of immortality, which shall never 
be interrupted or disturbed with divisions and factions ; for there 
all things are in perfect and perpetual peace and concord. 

10. To all these advantages must be added, that of living in 
the company of angels, of enjoying the conversation of all those 
sublime spirits, and of seeing those noble troops of saints, who 
are more bright and glorious than the stars of heaven. There 
the patriarchs shall appear with glory, for their perfect obe- 
dience, and the prophets, for their lively hope; there you 
shall behold the martyrs adorned w4th crowns, dyed in their own 
blood, and the virgins clothed in white robes, in token of their 
chastity. But what tongue shall be able to express the majesty 
of the sovereign Monarch, who resides in the midst of them all ? 
Were we every day to suffer fresh torments, nay, should we 
undergo for some time the pains of hell itself, that we might see 
the Lord in his glory, and enjoy the happy company of his elect, 
it would certainly be worth our while to endure all this, that we 
might arrive at such a height of happiness. Thus far St. Augustine. 

If, therefore, this be so great a blessing, how happy shall those 
eyes be, that are to be always fixed on those objects ! What a 
happiness must it be, to see this stately city, to behold these 
honorable citizens in all their glory, to have a sight of the face 

G2 



78 THE sinner's guide, 

of this Creator, the magnificence of these buildings, the riches 
of these places, and the common joy of this heavenly country! 
What must it be, to behold all the orders of these blessed spirits, 
the authority of this sacred senate, and the majesty of those 
venerable elders, whom St. John saw seated on thrones in the 
presence of God ! Apoc. iv. 4. What a pleasure must it be, to 
hear these angelic voices, these charming singers, and this harmo- 
nious music, not in four parts, as ours here is, but in as many 
parts and of as many different voices as there are blessed souls 
in heaven ! How -shall we be charmed when we hear them sing 
this most ravishing song, which the same St. John once heard : 
benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, 
and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen. ch. 
vii. 12. And, if it be so pleasing a thing to hear the harmony 
of these voices, how much more delightful must it be to see the 
unity and concord of these unanimous souls and bodies! to ob- 
serve what a union there will be between men and angels, but 
more particularly between men and God! What a happiness 
shall it be, to see these fine fields, these fountains of life, and 
these pastures on the mountains of Israel! Ezek. xxxiv. 14. 
What a glorious thing will it be, to sit down at this sumptuous 
table, to have a place amongst the guests, to eat of the same 
dish with Jesus Christ, that is, to share with him in his glory! 
There the blessed shall be at rest, and have a full enjoyment of 
eternal bliss. It is there that they shall sing and praise, and be 
perpetually entertained with the most delicious banquets. Since, 
therefore, faith tells us, that such great blessings as these are the 
rewards of virtue, can any man stand so much in his own light 
as not to resolve on an immediate pursuit after it, in hope of so 
large a recompense ? 



CHAPTER X. 

Of the tenth Motive that obliges us to the Love of Virtue, which is, 
the fourth of the four last Things, that is, the Pains of HelL 

1. Any, the least part of this great reward we have now 
spoken of, should be more than sufficient to inflame our hearts 
with the love of virtue. But if, to the fulness of that glory 
which is reserved for the just, we further add, the severity of 
those torments that are prepared for the wicked, what an effect 
should this have on us, especially there being no middle state 
between these two! The wicked man cannot comfort himself 
by saying, " All that can come of my living vdckedly is, that I 
shall never enjoy God ; as for the rest, I expect neither happiness 
nor misery." The sinful man shall not escape thus. One of 
these two opposite conditions must be his lot: he must either 



THE sinner's guide. ^ 

reign with God for all eternity, or burn for ever with the de\ils 
in hell. These are the two baskets the Lord in a ^'ision showed 
the prophet Jeremiah, before the gates of the temple (Jerem. 
xxiv. 1, 2), one of which had very good figs, and the other very 
naughty ones, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. God's 
design by this w^as to let his prophet know that there were two 
sorts of persons, the one, objects of his mercy, the other of his 
justice. The first cannot be in a more happy condition, nor the 
latter in a more miserable ; because the happiness of the first con- 
sists in seeing God, the perfection of all goodness, while the misery 
of the other is to be deprived of his sight, the greatest misfortune 
that can possibly befall poor man. 

This truth, well considered, would make those men, who sin so 
unconcernedly, sensible what a weight they voluntarily lay on 
themselves. They who get their living by carrying of bm-dens, 
observe first what they carry, and lift it up a Httie, to see if it is 
not too heavy for them ; and will you, who are brought up amidst the 
dehghts and charms of sin, let your sensual desii'es draw you away 
so far, in opposition to the will of God, as to oblige you to carry 
the heavy burden of sin, without any hope of ease or rest, and all 
this for the enjoyment of a base, infamous pleasure ? Try first its 
weight, that is, consider the punishment attending it, that you 
may see whether you are able to bear it. That you may the 
better conceive how painful this torment is, and how weighty a 
burden you lay on your shoulders, as often as you sin, I will pro- 
pose to you the following considerations : and though I have 
treated of this matter elsewhere, yet I cannot pass it over without 
saying something on it again in this place, though quite different 
from what I have said before ; for the subject is so copious, there 
is no exliausting it. 

2. Consider first the immense greatness of God, who is to 
punish sin. He is God in all his works, that is, great and won- 
derful in them all, not only in heaven, earth and sea, but even 
in hell, and in all other places. Now if this Lord is God, and 
shows himself God in all his actions, he will certainly appear so 
no less in his wrath, in his justice, and in the punislunent he in- 
flicts on sin. This is what he means, when he says, by the 
prophet Jeremiah, Fear ye not me ? Will ye not tremble at my 
presence, who have placed the sand for the hound of the sea, by a 
perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it, and though the waves toss 
themselves, yet can they not prevail ; though they roar, yet can they 
nx)t pass over it ? Jerem. v. 22. As if he had said more plainly, 
Is it not highly requisite that ye should fear the strength of that 
arm, which has wrought so great a miracle ; which will be neither 
less powerful nor less wonderful in the punishment it inflicts, 
than in all its other works ? So that we have as much reason to 
fear him infinitely, on the account of the miseries he can reduce 
us to, as we have to praise him for the favors he has bestowed 



80 THE sinner's guide. 

on us. It was this that made the same prophet, though umocent 
and sanctified in his mother's womb, to tremble, when he said, 
Who will not foar thee, King of nations, for glory appertains 
to thee ? Jer. x. 7. And in another place, I sate alone, because of 
thy hand; for thou hast filled me with commination ; ch. xv. 17, 
The holy prophet knew very well, that these threats did not 
touch him ; yet, for all this, they were so dreadful as to make 
him tremble. Therefore, it is with reason we say, the pillars of 
heaven shake before the majesty of God, and the powers and 
principalities all tremble in his presence ; not that they are in 
doubt of their own happiness, but because they are in continual 
admiration of his infinite majesty. If these pure spirits are not free 
from fear, what apprehension should sinners, and such as despise 
God's commandments, be in, as being the persons on whom he 
will thunder out the dreadful effects of his vengeance ! This is, 
without doubt, one of the chief reasons, which ought to stir up 
in our souls a fear of this punishment, as St. John plainly shows 
us in the Apocalypse (ch. xviii. 8), where, speaking of the pun- 
ishments which God will inflict, he says, Babylon^s plagues shall 
come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall 
he burnt with the fire ; because God is strong who shall judge her. 
And St. Paul, who very well knew his great strength, says. It is 
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; Heb. x. 31. 
It is no dreadful thing to fall into the hands of men, because they 
are not so strong but that a man may break from them, nor have 
they power enough to thrust a soul headlong into hell. Our 
Saviour, for this reason, said to his disciples. Be not afraid of 
them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can 
do. Fear him who, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into 
hell. Yea, I say to you, fear him. Luke xii. 4, 5. These are 
the hands the apostle says it is terrible to fall into. Those per- 
sons were surely very sensible of the force of these hands, who 
cried out, in the book of Ecclesiasticus (ch. ii. 22), Unless we do 
penance we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the 
hands of men. All this plainly makes it appear, that as God is 
great in his power, in his authority, and in all his works, so will 
he be in his anger, in his justice and in punishing the wicked. 

3. This will be still more evident, if we but consider the great- 
ness of the divine justice which inflicts this punishment ; and we 
may see more of it, in those dreadful examples we have in the 
Holy Scriptures. How remarkably did God punish Dathan and 
Abiron (Num. xvi.) with all their accomplices, by making the 
earth to open and swallow them alive, and by sinking them down 
into hell for rebelhng against their superiors ! Who ever heard 
of any threats or curses like those that are to be read in Deut- 
eronomy, against the transgressors of the law ? These are some of 
those many dreadful comminations : / will send armies of e)iemies 
against you, says God, which shall besiege your cities, and shall 



THE sinner's guide. 81 

bring you into such straits , that the tender and delicate woman 
among you, which would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon 
the ground, for delicateness and tenderness, shall devour the after- 
hirth, with the hlood and the rest of the uncleanness that flows from 
her. She shall eat them, for want of all things, secretly in the 
siege. Deut. xxviii. 50, 52, 5d, 56, 57. These are, indeed, most 
terrible punishments ; and yet neither are these, nor any others 
whatsoever, that man can suffer in this life, any more than a 
mere shadow, or a faint resemblance, in comparison of those which 
are reserved for the next. Then will be the time that the divine 
justice shall signalize itself against those who have here despised 
his mercy. If, therefore, the shadow and the resemblance be so 
frightful, what shall we think of the substance and original? 
And if the chalice of the Lord be so unpalatable now, when there 
is water mixed with it, and when the severity of justice is lessened 
so much by the mildness of mercy, how bitter must the potion be, 
when we shall be forced to drink it off without any mixture at 
all ! and when those persons who would not accept God's mercy 
shall feel nothing but the effects of his judgments ! And yet these 
torments, though so great, are all infinitely less than what our sins 
deserve. 

4. Besides the consideration of the greatness of God's justice, 
another way to make us understand the rigor of these punishments 
he will inflict, is to reflect on the effects of his mercy, on wliich 
sinners so much presume. For what greater subject of astonish- 
ment can we have, than to see a God taking human flesh on him, 
and suffering in his bodyjall the torments and disgraces which 
he underwent, even to the dying on the cross? What greater 
mercy could he show, than thus to humble himself, to carry the 
burden of all our sins, that he might thereby ease us of their 
weight, and to offer up his most precious blood for the salvation 
of those very wretches who shed it ? Now, as the works of the 
divine mercy are wonderful in themselves, so will the effects of 
God's justice be. For since God is equal in all his attributes, 
because all that is in him is God, it follows, that his justice is no less 
in itself than his mercy is ; and as, by the thickness of one arm, we 
may judge how big the other is, so may we know how great the arm 
of God's justice, by that of his mercy, since they are4)oth equal. 

If God, when he was pleased to make known his mercy to the 
world, performed such wonderful and almost incredible things, 
that the same world looked on them as folly, what do yoM think 
he will do at his second coming, which is the time designed for 
manifesting the severity of his justice ? especially since every sin 
that is committed in the world gives him a new occasion to exer- 
cise it ; whereas he never had any motive to mercy but that same 
mercy itself; there being nothing at all, in human nature, that 
deserves his favor : but as for his justice, he will have as many 

n 



82 THE sinner's guide. 

reasons to execute its utmost rigor, as tliere have been crimes com- 
mitted by mankind. Judge by that how terrible it must be. 

5. St. Bernard, in one of his sermons on the coming of our 
Saviour, has explained this very well, in these words : " As our 
Lord, at his first coming into the world, showed himself very mer- 
ciful and easy in forgiving, so, at his second, he will show himself 
as rigid and severe m punishing ; and as there is no one but may 
be reconciled to his favor now, it v^U be impossible for any one 
to obtain it then ; because he is as infinite in his justice as he is 
in his mercy, and can punish with as much rigor as he pardons 
with mildness. His mercy, it is true, has the first place, provided 
our behavior has not been such as may provoke the severity of 
his justice." These words give us to understand, that the great- 
ness of God's mercy is the standard whereby we may guess at his 
justice. The same doctrine is held forth to us by the royal prophet, 
saying. Our God is the God from whom cometh salvation; God is 
the Lord, by whom we escape death. God shall wound the head 
of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in 
his wickedness. Ps. Ixviii. 20, 21. This shows how kind and 
merciful God is to those who return to him, and how severe against 
hardened and obstinate sinners. 

6. Another proof of this we have, in the extraordinary patience 
with which God bears, not only the world in general, but every 
sinner in particular. How many do we daily see, who, from the 
very first moment they came to the use of reason till their latter 
days, have been employed in nothing but sin, without ever regard- 
ing God's promises or threats, his mercies or his commands, or 
any other thing that tended to their conversion? And yet this 
sovereign goodness has been all the while expecting them with 
patience, without cutting off one minute of their unhappy lives, 
and has not ceased to make use of several means to bring them 
to repentance, but all to no purpose. What therefore, will he 
do, when, after having exhausted this long patience, his anger, 
w^hich has been so long a time gathering in the repository of his 
justice, shall overflow the banks which kept it in ? With how 
much force and violence will it rush in on them ! This is what the 
apostle meant, when he said, Knowest thou njot, man, that the 
benignity of 'God leadeth thee to penance ? But according to thy 
hardness, and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up to thyself wrath 
against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of 
God, who will render to every man according to his works. Rom. 
ii. 4, 5, 6. 

What can he mean by treasurest up to thyself wrath, but as 
they who hoard up riches daily, heap gold on gold, and silver on 
silver, for the increasing of their stock ; so God daily adds to the 
treasure of his anger, in proportion to the number of the sinner's 
crimes ? Were a man to be altogether employed for fifty or sixty 



THE SINNER S GUIDE. 83 

years together, in heaping up treasures, so as not to let one day 
or hour pass without making some addition to it, what a mighty 
sum would he find at the end of that time I How miserable, then, 
must your condition be, since you scarce suffer one moment of 
your life to slip without adding something to the treasure of God's 
wrath, which is every minute increased' by the number of your 
sins! For though nothing else were to be put in but the im- 
modest glances of your eyes, the malicious and vicious desires of 
your heart, and the oaths and scandalous words that come from 
your mouth, these alone would suffice to fill a whole w^orld. 
Then, if so many other enormous crimes as you are daily guilty of, 
be added to these, what a treasure of wrath and vengeance shall 
you have heaped against yourself at the end of so many years! 

7. If, besides all this, we make a serious reflection on the in- 
gratitude and malice of the wricked, it will, in a great measure, 
show us with what severity and rigor this punishment is to be 
inflicted. To pass a true judgment on this matter, we should 
consider, on one side, how merciful God has dealt with men, 
what he did and said for them whilst he was here on earth, and 
how much he suffered for them, what dispositions and means he 
has found for their leading a virtuous fife, how much he has par- 
doned or seemed not to take notice of, the benefits he has done 
them, the e\ils he has delivered them from, with infinite other graces 
he is always bestowing on them. Let us consider, on the other 
hand, how forgetful men have been of God, their ingratitude, 
their treasons, their infidelities, their blasphemies, the contempt 
they have had of both him and his commandments, which has 
been carried so far, that they have trampled him under foot, not 
only for a trivial interest, but very often for nothing, and out of 
mere malice ; nay, they are come to such a degree of impudence, 
that the laws of God are the frequent matter of their pleasantry, 
ridicule and impiety. What do you think those persons who 
have despised so high a majesty can expect, those who, as the 
apostle says (Heb. x. 29), have trodden under foot the Son of 
God, and have esteemed the blood of the covenant unclean, with 
which he was sanctified, but to be punished and tormented on that 
day, wherein they must render an account of themselves, ac- 
cording to the affronts and injuries they have offered ? For, God 
being a most equitable judge, that is to say, such a one as will 
punish the offender proportionably to the off*ence given, and being, 
besides, the party offended, how great must the torments be, which 
the soul and body of the criminal, delivered up to his justice, 
shall suffer, since they are to equal the grievances of the crimes 
by which the divine Majesty has been affronted ! And if it was 
necessary that the Son of God should shed his blood to satisfy 
for those sins which had been committed against him (the merits 
of the person supplying what might be wanting to the rigor of 
the punishment), what must follow when this satisfaction is to 



84 THE sinner's guide. 

be made by no other way but by the severity of the punishment, 
without any consideration of the person at all ? 

8. If, as we have seen, the quality of the Judge ought to make 
us so much afraid, what should that of the executioner do ? For 
the sentence which God shall pass against a soul is to be put in 
execution by the devil, and what favor can be expected from so 
cruel an enemy? That you may conceive something of his fury 
and mahce, consider how he dealt with holy Job, w^hen God had 
delivered him into his power. What cruelty and violence did 
he not exercise on this righteous man, without the least show of 
tenderness or pity? He sent the Sabeans to drive away his oxen 
and asses; his sheep and his servants he destroyed by fire; he 
overthrew all his houses, he killed his childreft, he covered his 
body all over with sores and ulcers, leaving him no part of those 
vast riches he possessed before but a dunghill to sit on, and 
a tile to scrape off the corruption that ran from his sores. And, 
to add to his sorrow, he left him a wicked wife, and such friends 
as it had been more himianity to destroy than spare; for they, 
with their tongues, pierced and tormented his heart more cruelly 
than the worms that preyed on his flesh. Thus he behaved him- 
self towards Job. But what was it he did, or rather what was it 
he left undone, against the Saviour of the world, in that dreadful 
night, when he was delivered up to the power of darkness? It 
is more than can be comprised in a few words. If, then, this 
enemy of mankind, and all his accomplices, are so inhuman, so 
bloody, such enemies to mankind, and so powerful to do harm, 
what will become of you, miserable creature, when you shall be 
delivered up into their hands, with a full and absolute authority, 
to execute on you all the cruelties they shall be able to invent? 
And this not for a day, or for a night, nor for a year only, or for 
an age, but for all eternity. Do you think these merciless devils, 
when they have you in their clutches, will use you kindly? O! 
how dark and dismal will that unhappy day be, when you shall 
be delivered up to the power of these ravenous wolves, these 
savage beasts! 

9. But that you may the better conceive what usage is to be 
expected at their hands, I will here set down a notable example, 
out of St. Gregory's Dialogues; L. 4. c. 33. He tells us, "That 
there was a religious man in one of his monasteries, no riper in 
virtue than in years, who was ready to die of a very violent sick- 
ness. The brothers being all met together, according to their 
custom, to assist him in this his dangerous passage, and kneeling 
about his bed to pray for him, the dying man cried out to them, 
'Begone, begone, fathers, and leave me a prey to this dragon, 
that he may swallow me up, for my head is already in his fiery 
jaws, and he presses me with his scales, which are like the teeth 
of a saw, so that I am in most insupportable torment. I desire 
you, therefore, to quit the room, and leave me to him, for not 



THE sinner's guide. S9 

being able to make an end of me whilst you are here, he puts me 
to so much greater pain.' The religious advised him to take 
courage, and make the sign of the cross : ' How shall I do it,' 
says he, ' when the dragon has so twisted his tail about my hands 
and feet, that I am not able to stir V They, not at all disheart- 
ened at this, renewed their prayers with much greater fervor than 
before, and seconding them with sighs and tears, obtained of the 
Father of mercies his deliverance from this violent agony, which 
left him so astonished and confounded, that he afterwards lived 
so virtuous a life as to put him out of all danger of seeing himself 
reduced to such circumstances again." 

10. These are the wicked spirits which St. John describes in 
his Revelation, under the most frightful forms w^e are able to con- 
ceive. " I saw," says he, " a star fall from heaven upon the 
earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit. 
And he opened the bottomless pit ; and the smoke of the pit arose 
as the smoke of a great furnace ; and the sun and the air w^as 
darkened with the smoke of the pit. And from the smoke of the 
pit there came out locusts upon the earth, and powder was given 
to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was 
commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, 
nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who have not 
the seal of God on their foreheads : and it w^as given to them that 
they should not kill them; but that they should torment them 
five months, and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, 
when he striketh a man. And in those days men shall seek death, 
and shall not find it ; and they shall desire to die, and death shall 
fly from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto 
horses prepared for battle : and on their heads were, as it were, 
crowns like gold ; and their faces were as the faces of men. And 
they had hair as the hair of women : and their teeth were as the 
teeth of lions. And they had breast-plates as breast-plates of 
iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots 
of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like to 
scorpions, and there were stings in their tails." Apoc. ix. 1 — 10. 
Thus far are the words of St. John. Now what was the design 
of the Holy Ghost in showing us the greatness of these torments 
under such terrible representations and figures ? What other de- 
sign could he have, but to let us know, by these dreadful forms, 
how great the wrath of the Lord will be, what the instruments 
of his justice, what punishments are to fall on siimers, and what 
power our enemies are like to have, that the dread of these things 
might deter us from offending God ? For what star was it that 
fell from heaven, and had the key of the bottomless pit delivered 
to it, but that bright angel, who was flung headlong out of heaven 
into hell, and to whose power the kingdom of darkness was com- 
mitted? And what were these locusts, so fierce and so well 
armed, but the devils his accomplices, and the ministers of his 

H 



86 THE sinner's guide. 

rage ? What were these green things, which they were com- 
manded not to hurt, but the just, who flourish by being watered 
with the heavenly dew of grace, and thus bring forth the fruits of 
eternal life ? Who are those that have not the seal of God stamped 
on them, but such as are destitute of his Spirit, the true and infalli- 
ble mark of his servants and of the sheep of his flock? It is against 
these unhappy wretches the divine justice has raised such forces, 
that they may be tormented, both in this hfe and in the next, by 
those very devils whose service they have preferred, before that of 
their Creator, as the Egyptians once were by the flies and gnats, 
which they adored. Add to all this, how dreadful it will be to 
behold, in this sad place, those hideous and frightful monsters, this 
devouring dragon, and this writhing serpent. What a horrible 
sight must it be to see this huge and monstrous behemoth, which 
is said in the book of Job, to erect his tail like a cedar, to drink 
up whole rivers, and to devour mountains. 

11. A thorough consideration of all these things is sufficient to 
make us understand what torments the wicked are to suffer. For 
who can imagine, from what has been said, but that these pains 
must be very great ? What can a man expect from the greatness 
of God himself ; from the greatness of his justice in punishing sin ; 
from the greatness of his patience in bearing with sinners ; from 
the infinite multitude of favors and graces by which he has en- 
deavored to invite and draw them to himself; from the greatness 
of the hatred he bears to sin, which deserves to be infinitely hated, 
because it offends an infinite Majesty ; and from the greatness of 
our enemy's cruelty and fury ? What can we, I say, expect from 
all these things, which are so great, but that sin should meet with 
a most severe and terrible punishment ? If, therefore, so severe a 
punishment is ordained for sin, and no doubt can be made of it, 
since faith testifies this truth, how can they, who pretend to own 
and believe it, be so insensible of the heavy weight every sin they 
commit throws on them, when, by giving way to but one offence, 
they bring themselves into the danger of incurring a penalty, which 
on so many accounts appears so terrible? 

§ I. Of the duration of these Torments. — 12. But though all 
these considerations are sufficient, without any further addition, 
to make us tremble, we shall have much more reason to be afraid, 
if we do but reflect with ourselves on the duration of the pains 
mentioned. For if, after several thousands of years, there should 
be any limits set, or any ease given to these sufferings, it would 
be some kind of comfort to the wicked : but what shall I say 
of their eternity, which has no bounds, but will last as long as 
God himself? This eternity is such, that, as a great doctor tells 
us, should one of the damned, at the end of every thousand years, 
shed but one tear, he would sooner overflow the world than find 
any end to his miseries. Can any thing, then, be more terrible ? 
This is certainly so great an evil, that, though all the pains of hell 



THE sinner's guide. 87 

were no sharper than the prick of a pin, considering they were 
to continue for ever, man ought to undergo all the torments of this 
world to avoid them. O I that this eternity, this terrible word 
for ever were deeply imprinted in your heart ! how great would 
be the benefit you would reap by it! We read of a certain vain 
and worldly-minded man, who, considering seriously one day on 
this eternity of torments, was frightened vvath the duration of 
them into this reflection : No man in the world in liis right senses 
would be confined to a bed of roses and violets for the space of 
thirty or forty years, though he were at this price to purchase 
the empire of the whole earth. If so, said he to himself, what a 
madman must he be, that w^U, for things of much less value, run 
the hazard of lying infinite ages on a bed of fire and flames ! This 
thought alone wrought him up to such and so immediate a change 
of life, that he became a great saint and a worthy prelate of the 
church. What will those nice and efleminate persons say to this, 
whose whole night's sleep is disturbed and broken if a fly be but 
buzzing in their chamber ? What w^ill they say, when they shall 
be stretched out on a bed of fire, and surrounded on all sides 
with sulphurous flames, not for one short summer's night, but for 
all eternity ? These are the persons to whom the prophet Isaias 
(ch. xxxiii. 14) put this question : Who among you can dwell with 
the devouring fire ? Who am,ong you can dwell with everlasting 
burnings ? Who can be able to bear such a scorcliing heat as 
this for so long a time ? O foolish and senseless men ! lulled into 
a lethargic sleep by the charms of this old deceiver of mankind ; 
Can any thing be more unreasonable, than to see men so busily 
providing for this mortal and corruptible life, and at the same 
time to have no greater concern for the things which regard eter- 
nity ? If we are blind to this mistake, what will our eyes be open 
to ? What will we be afraid of, if we have no apprehension of 
this misery ? or what shall we ever provide against, if not against 
a matter of such importance ? 

13. Since all this is so undeniably true, why will we not resolve 
to walk in the way of virtue, though ever so painful, that we may 
avoid those punishments we are threatened vdth, if we take the 
contrary way ? Should God leave it to any man's choice, either 
to be tormented with the gout or tooth-ache, in such a violent 
manner, as not to have any hopes of ease either day or night, or 
else to turn Carthusian or barefoot Carmelite, and undergo all the 
austerities those religious men are obliged to, it is not to be 
imagined any man would be so stupid as not to choose either of 
these two states, though on the bare motive of self-love, rather 
than suffer such torture for so long a time. Why then do not 
we accept of so easy a penance to avoid such lasting torments, , 
since the pains of hell are so much more insufferable, of so much 
longer continuance, and God requires so much less of us than the 



88 THE sinner's guide. 

life of a Carthusian or Carmelite ? Why do we refuse to undergo 
so little pain, when by it we may escape so long and so rigorous 
a punishment ? Can any man be guilty of greater folly than this 
is? But the punishment of it shall be, that since man would not, 
by short penance done here, redeem himself from so much misery, 
he shall do penance in hell for all eternity, without reaping any 
benefit by it. The fiery furnace which Nabuchodonosor com- 
manded to be kindled in Babylon is a type hereof (Dan. iii. 47) ; 
for though the flames mounted forty-nine cubits, they could never 
reach to fifty, the number of years appointed for solemnizing the 
Jewish jubilee ; to signify to us, that though the flames of this 
eternal furnace of Babylon, which is hell, are continually casting 
forth a most violent heat, and put those souls which are thrown 
into them to most exquisite pains and torments, yet they shall 
never obtain for them the grace and remission of the year of 
jubilee. O unprofitable pains 1 O fruitless tears ! O penance so much 
the more rigorous, as it is accompanied with perpetual despair! 
How small a part of all those evils you are now forced to sufl^er might 
have obtained you a pardon, if you would but willingly have 
undergone it in this life ! How easily might we prevent our fall- 
ing into such miseries with but a little pains and trouble ! Let our 
eyes, then, melt into fountains of tears, and let our hearts break 
forth into continual sighs without intermission. For this, says the 
prophet, I wail and howl ; I will go stripped and 7iaked ; I will 
make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the ostriches ; 
for her wound is desperate; Mich. i. 8. 

14. If men had never been told these truths, or if they had not 
looked on them as infallible, we should not wonder to see them fall 
into that supine negligence they are subject to. But have we not 
a deal of reason to be astonished, when those very persons who 
hold what we have here asserted as an article of faith, and know 
that, as our Saviour has said. Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
hut not my word ; that is to say, it shall infallibly have its effect, 
live so inexcusably careless and unconcerned ? Tell me now, O 
man, blind in body, but blinder more in soul and understanding, 
what pleasure can you find in all the advantages and riches of the 
world to counterbalance the hazard of your eternal salvation? 
"If," says St. Jerome, "you were as wise as Solomon, as beautiful 
as Absalom, as strong as Samson, as old as Enoch, as rich as 
Croesus, and as powerful as Caesar, what good would all this do 
you, if, when you die, the worms should prey upon your body, and 
the devils seize on your soul to torment it, as they do the rich 
glutton's, for all eternity ?" 

Thus much for the first part of the exhortation to virtue. We 
will treat now of the extraordinary favors which are promised it, 
even in this life. 



THE 



SINNER'S GUIDE. 



BOOK I. 

PART THE SECOND. 

OF THE SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES PROMISED TO 

VIRTUE IN THIS LIFE, AND PARTICULARLY OF TWELVE 

EXTRAORDINARY PRIVILEGES BELONGING TO IT. 

CHAPTER I. 

Of the eleventh Motive that obliges us to the Pursuit of Virtue, 
which is, the inestimable Advantages promised it in this Life, 

1. I KNOW not what excuse man can plead for not following 
"vdrtue, which is supported by such powerful reasons : for in its 
behalf may be urged all that God is in himself, all he deserves, 
what favors he has done us, what he still promises, and what 
punishments he threatens. And therefore, we have cause to ask 
how there come to be so few Christians that seek virtue, since 
they confess and believe all that has been said. For it is no won- 
der that the heathens, who are ignorant of its value, should not 
prize what they do not know, like a delving peasant, who, if he 
happen to find a precious stone, makes no account of it, because 
he is ignorant of its value. But for Christians, who are well 
acquainted with these great truths, to live as if they believed noth- 
ing at all of them, to be so entirely forgetful of God, to be such 
slaves to their vices, to let their passions so tyrannize over them, 
to be so wedded to the things of this world, and so little con- 
cerned about those of the next, to give themselves over to all man- 
ner of crimes, as if there were neither death, judgment, heaven or 
hell ; this is what should surprise the whole world, and give us 
ground enough to ask, Whence does this blindness, this stupidity 
proceed ? 

2. This mighty evil owes its rise to more causes than one. The 
chief one is the ereneral prepossession of worldlings, that God 

12 ^ *^ H2 (») 



90 THE sinner's guide. 

reserves to the next life all the rewards he promises to virtue, with- 
out allowing it any recompense in this. This is the reason why 
men, who consult their own interests so much, and are so vio- 
lently wrought on by present objects, concern themselves so little 
about what is to come, as looking after nothing that does not give 
them immediate satisfaction. Nor is this mistake a new one, for 
it is what was made in the days of the prophets. Thus we see 
that whenever Ezekiel either made any great promises, or threat- 
ened severely in the name of God, the people laughed at him, and 
said to one another. The vision which this man sees will not come 
to pass yet ; nor shall his prophecies he fulfilled this great while ; 
Ezek. xii. 27. They also jeered the prophet Isaias, and repeated 
his words, saying, Command and command again, command and 
command again, expect and expect again, expect and expect again, 
a while hence, another while hence ; Isa. xxviii. 13. This, then, 
you see, is one of the chief reasons of men not observing 
the commandments of God. They have nothing they think to 
hope for, from his mercy at present, but that is all to put off till 
hereafter. Solomon, as very sensible of this common error, took 
occasion from hence to say, " That the reason why men give them- 
selves over, without any kind of consideration, to all manner of 
vice, is because the sentence passed against the wicked is not im- 
mediately put in execution." And afterwards he says, "That the 
greatest misery in this life, and what of all makes men sin most, is 
to see that the good and the bad, that those who offer up sacrifice, 
and those who contemn it, fare alike in all things, in appearance 
at least ;'' Eccles. ix. 2, &c. And, therefore, the hearts of men are 
filled with malice in this life, and they are afterwards plunged into 
hell. What Solomon said concerning the wicked is sufficiently 
confirmed in themselves, in the prophet Malachy (ch. iii. 14, 15,) 
where they say. He loses his labor that serves God ; and what good 
have we got hy keeping his commandments, and hy our walking pen- 
sively before the Lord of hosts ? Wherefore we esteem those happy 
who are proud, since they are exalted, whilst they commit iniquity, 
and have tempted God, and are yet secure. This is the common 
talk of sinners, and one of the chief motives of their continuing in 
their crimes. For, as St. Ambrose says, " they think that to buy 
hopes with dangers is too hard a bargain, that is, to purchase 
future goods with present evils, and to let go what they have in 
their hands to feed themselves up with an imaginary possession of 
things which they have no hold of yet ;" L. 7. in Luc. c. 7. 

There is nothing better, in my opinion, to disabuse us of this 
dangerous mistake, than these words of our Saviour, interrupted 
with his tears, when considering the deplorable state of Jerusalem ; 
he wept over it, saying. If thou also hadst known and that in this 
thy day, the things that are for thy peace : but now they are 
hidden from thy eyes ; Luke xix. 42. Our Saviour considered, 



THE sinner's guide. 91 

on one side, what advantages this people had received by his 
coming ; for all the treasures and all the graces of heaven were 
brought down from thence, with the Lord of heaven. On the 
other side, he saw that this same people, despising the poor and 
mean appearance which he made in his dress and in his person, 
would neither receive nor own him for what he was. He knew 
how great a loss this nation which he loved so tenderly would suf- 
fer by their ignorance. For they were to lose not only all those 
graces which he brought with him for them, but their temporal 
government and liberty. The Lord, pushed on, by the force of 
grief, shed these tears and spoke these few words, which he broke 
off abruptly, though they were as significant as they were short. 
The same words may be well applied to our present purpose ; 
because if, on the one hand, we consider the beauty of virtue, 
with the extraordinary graces which go along with it, and how 
these graces, on the other hand, are hid from the sight of carnal 
men, it is manifest we have reason to weep, and to say with our 
Saviour, If thou also hadst Jmown ! O unhappy sinner, how great 
a value would you set on virtue ! how would you long after it, and 
what would you not do for obtaining it, should God but open 
your eyes to let you see what riches, w^hat pleasures, what peace, 
w^hat liberty, w^hat tranquillity, what light, what sweetness, and 
what other benefits are its continual attendants ? But these are 
all hid from the eyes of worldlings, w^ho, minding nothing but its 
hard and bitter outside, imagine all within to be troublesome and 
unpleasant, and that it may pass current in the next life, but not 
in this. So that, reasoning according to the flesh, they say 
they will not be at the charge of certain dangers for the purchase 
of uncertain hopes, nor hazard their present happiness for a slip- 
pery dependence on what is to come. This is the common dis- 
course of those who are daunted by the outward appearance of 
virtue. They do not know that Christian philosophy is like 
Christ himself, who, under the form of a poor and humble man, 
continued still to be God and sovereign Lord of all things. And 
for this reason it is said of the faithM that they are dead to the 
w^orld : but their life is hid with Christ in God ; Coloss. iii. 3. 
For as our Saviour's glory w^as concealed under this veil, so 
should the glory of all such as imitate him. We read of certain 
images that were called Silenes, coarse and rough on the outside, 
but very curious and artificial within, so that all the beauty and 
art lay hid, whilst that which was but mean and ordinary was 
turned outward. Thus the eyes of the ignorant were deceived by 
the appearance, but the inside ingenuity attracted the wiser sort. 
Such, without doubt, have been the lives of the prophets and apos- 
tles, and of all true and perfect Christians, as was the life of their 
Lord and Master. 

4. But if you still find the practice of virtue hard, reflect on the 



92 THE sinner's guide. 

means God has assisted you with to make it easy. Such are the 
infused graces, with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the sacraments 
of the new law, and several other divine favors, that serve as oars 
and sails to a ship, or as wings to a bird. Consider what the very 
name and being of virtue imports, which is essentially a very noble 
and perfect habit ; and, therefore, regularly speaking, ought, like 
all other habits, to make us act with facility and pleasure. Con- 
sider, further, that our Saviour has promised to his elect, not only 
the goods of glory, but those of grace, the latter for this life, and 
the former for the life to come. As the royal prophet assures us, 
saying. The Lord will give grace and glory (Ps. Ixxxiii. 12), ' 
which are like to rich vessels, filled with all kinds of good things, 
the one for this life, and the other for the next ; by which we may 
see there is something more in virtue than appears at first sight. 
Consider, again, that since God lets us want nothing that is neces- 
sary, having so plentifully provided all creatures with whatever 
they stand in need of, it is not to be imagined, since nothing can 
be more necessary or of greater importance to man than virtue, 
that he would leave us entirely to the disposal of our own free 
wills, which are so weak and impotent to the blindness of our 
understanding, to the inconstancy of our humors, to our own de- 
sires, which are so bent on evil, to a nature, in short, so depraved 
by sin, without strengthening us with infused habits, which are, as 
it were, oars to help us over all those shelves and sands, that 
hinder us from making our way through the sea of this life. For 
it is unreasonable to think that the Divine Providence, which has 
taken so much care for the fly, the spider and the ant, having sup- 
plied them with all things requisite for their subsistence, could have 
left man, the noblest of all creatures under heaven, without such 
means as are necessary for his acquiring virtue. 

5. To go further yet, how can God possibly be so sparing to 
his faithful servants, as to leave them in their necessities, and 
forsake them in the midst of their sufferings, whilst the world 
and the devil, by too many different false delights and pleasures, 
win the hearts of those who serve them ? How can you imagine 
the practice of virtue to be so mean, and that of vice so noble ? 
Can you persuade yourself that God would ever permit this last 
so much to surpass the other? What do you think God de- 
signed to signify to us by the answer his prophet Malachy made 
in his name, to the complaints of the wicked ? Return, said he, 
and you shall see what difference there is between the righteous 
man and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that 
serves him not; Malac. iii. 1. This shows that God does not 
think it enough to propose the advantages of the next life, of 
which he treats afterwards, to those who return to him ; but he 
says to them. Be converted, and you shall see ; as if he had said. 
It is not my only design you should wait till the other life to know 



THE sinner's guide. 93 

the advantages you are to reap, but return to me and you shall 
see, this very moment, what difference there is between the good 
and the bad, the riches of the one and the poverty of the other ; 
the joy, peace and satisfaction the one enjoys, and the sorrow, 
restlessness and discontent that follow the other; the light the 
one walks in, and the darkness that surrounds the other. Thus 
experience will show you how many advantages, more than you 
imagined, the followers of virtue have over those that follow vice. 

6. God gives almost the very same answer again to some other 
persons who had no better opinion of virtue than the former. 
Deceived by the same appearance, they laughed at those who 
were virtuous, and said to them, Let your Lord he glorified, and 
we shall see it in your joy ; Isa. Ivi. 5. After these few words, 
the prophet, giving a large account of the torments prepared by 
God's justice for the wicked, immediately tells us what joys are 
laid up for the just. Rejoice, says he, with Jerusalem, and he 
glad icith her, all ye that love her : Rejoice for joy with her, all 
yet that mourn for her. That ye may suck, and he filled with the 
breasts of her consolations, that ye may milk out, and flow with 
delights from the abundance of her glory. For thus saith the 
Lord : Behold I will bring upon her as it were a river of peace, 
and as an overflowing torrent the glory of the gentiles, which you 
shall suck : you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees 
they shall caress you. As one whom the mother caresseth, so will 
I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. You 
shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish 
like an herb, and the hand of the Lord shall he known to his ser- 
vants ; ch. Ixvi. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. This is to signify, that as 
men, by the vast extent of the heavens, earth and sea, and by the 
brightness of the sun, moon and stars, judge of the omnipotence 
and the infinite beauty of God, the Author of these wondrous 
works, shall discover to the just the greatness of his power, riches 
and mercy, by those infinite favors he will bestow on them, and 
the joy they receive. So that, as he showed the world his severity 
and rigor toward the wicked, by the punishments he inflicted on 
Pharao, he will, in the same manner, show the greatness of his 
love to his elect, by the extraordinary favors he will confer on 
them. Happy the soul that shall receive favors from God in 
token of his infinite love ! and unhappy those whose torments and 
sufferings shall manifest the rigor of his justice ! For each of 
these attributes being infinite, what effects must such infinite causes 
produce ! 

7. I must further add, that if you shall think the way of virtue 
uneasy and melancholy, you may look into those words the 
divine wisdom utters of herself, as follows : " I walk in the ways 
of justice, in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may en- 
rich them that love me, and may fill their treasures ;" Prov. viii. 



THE sinner's GUID?. 



20, 21. What are these riches but the riches of this heavenly 
wisdom, far more precious than are the riches of the world, and 
bestowed on the lovers of justice, which is the same we have 
hitherto called virtue ? For if her riches did not much better de- 
serve the name, than all other riches, how could the apostle have 
thanked God for the Corinthians being rich in spiritual things ? 1 
Cor. i. 5. He calls them rich without any kind of limitation, 
whilst he styles others the rich of this world only. 

§ I. Gospel authority for what has been said. — 8. For further 
proof of what I have said, I will add this divine sentence of Jesus 
Christ. St. Mark tells us, that when St. Peter asked our Saviour, 
what reward they should have who had quitted all for love of him, 
he gives him this answer : Jlmen I say to you, there is no man 
who hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, 
or children, or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who shall 
not receive a hundred times as much, now in this time ; and in 
the world to come life everlasting ; Mark x. 29, 30. If you 
weigh those words exactly, you cannot in the first place deny, but 
that Jesus Christ makes a formal distinction between the rewards 
of virtue in this life and in the next, the one being a promise of a 
future, and the other of a present, happiness. You must confess, 
too, that it is impossible this promise should not be performed, 
since heaven and earth are sooner to pass away than one tittl-e of 
these words, how hard soever they appear, shall fail. And as we 
certainly believe, there is in God both Trinity and Unity, because 
he has said so, though this mystery is beyond the reach of our 
reason, so are we to believe this other truth, though it exceeds all 
human understanding, since it is grounded on the same authority 
of God's own word. 

9. What, then, is this hundred fold, which the just receive 
even in this life ? For we see they are, for the most part, men of 
no very considerable quality nor very rich, of no great employ- 
ment in the state, nor enjoy any other worldly advantages, but, on 
the contrary, many of them live retired, obscure, poor and neces- 
sitous. How then can this infallible word of God be proved to 
be true, but by acknowledging, that God makes them so spiritually 
rich, that they are more happy and quiet than if they were sove- 
reign lords of the world, and yet are destitute of the conveniences 
of this life ? Nor is this to be wondered at, because, as God may 
preserve mankind by other means, and not by bread alone, so it 
is not necessary he should satisfy those souls he has such a love 
for with temporal goods, having better ways of doing it. This we 
have seen in a particular manner justified in all the saints, whose 
prayers, fastings, tears and labors have given them far greater 
delight and satisfaction than all the joys and pleasures of the 
world could ever have done ; which shows us plainly, that what 
they received was a hundred times better than what they left for 



THE sinner's guide. 95 

the love of God. For instead of the false and apparent goods 
they forsook, they received such as were true and real ; instead 
of the uncertain, those which were certain, spiritual instead of 
temporal, ease instead of care, quiet instead of trouble, and for a 
vicious and unpleasant life, a virtuous and delightful one ; so that 
if, for the love of God, you have despised the base treasures of this 
world, you shall find in him such as are inestimable. If for his 
sake you have contemned false honors, you shall meet with true 
ones in him. If you have forsaken a mortal father on his account, 
the eternal Father will satisfy you with all kinds of dehghts. If, 
in fine, you bid adieu to hurtful pleasures for the love of him, he 
will entertain you with such as shall be free from the least tincture 
of bitterness or alloy. When you shall arrive to such a degree of 
perfection as this is, you will then abhor what you took the great- 
est pleasure in before. For when our eyes are once cleared up by 
this heavenly brightness, w^e discover a new Hght, which repre- 
sents things quite different from what they appear to us at first. 
What we then thought sweet, tastes bitter to us now ; and what 
we looked on as bitter then, we now find to be sweet. We are 
pleased now \^ith that w^hich frighted us before, and look on that 
as hideous and ghastly, which once seemed beautiful and charming. 
Thus we find our Saviour's words to be verified, by his bestow- 
ing on us the incorruptible goods of the soul for the corruptible 
ones of the body, and for the goods of fortune those of grace, 
which are incomparably better, and more capable to satisfy man, 
than all earthly goods. 

10. In further proof of this important truth, I will give you an 
example, taken out of the lives of the famous men of the order of 
the Cistercians. It is there written, " that as St. Bernard was 
preaching in Flanders, full of zeal for the conversion of souls to 
God, amongst those who w^ere touched with a particular grace, 
was a certain person called Arnulphus, one of the chief men of 
that country, and closely tied to the things of this world. But he 
at last, breaking through all, became a Cistercian monk, in the 
monastery of Clairvaux. St. Bernard was so pleased with this 
great change, that he used often to say, that God had manifested 
his power as wonderfully in converting Arnulphus, as in raising 
Lazarus from the dead, having drawn him from so many pleasures, 
which, hke a grave, he lay buried in, to raise him to a new life, 
which was no less to be admired in its process than it had been in 
his conversion." But because it w^ould be too tedious to give you 
a particular account of this holy man's virtues, I shall only make 
use of what serves our present purpose : " This good monk was 
very subject to terrible fits of the colic, which often put him in a 
very dying condition. One day it seized on him so violently, that 
he lost both speech and senses ; whereon the rehgious, seeing but 
little hopes of fife left, gave him the Extreme Unction. Soon 



96 THE sinner's guide. 

after, coming to himself, he began to praise God, and cried out 
aloud, 'All thou hast ever said, O most merciful Jesus ! is very 
true.' The religious, surprised at his frequent repeating the same 
words, asked him what he meant, but he made them no answer, 
continuing to cry out louder and louder, ' All thou hast ever said, 

most merciful Jesus I is very true.' Some who were present 
fancied his pains had put him beside himself ; but he, perceiving 
their mistake, said to them, ' It is not so, my brothers, it is not so, 
for I never was better in my senses than now, whilst I tell you, 
that all that Jesus Christ has said is very true.' Hereon the rest 
of the monks said. It is what we all of us believe, but why do you 
repeat it so often ? ' Because,' said he, * our Saviour has told us 
in his gospel, that whosoever shall forsake his friends and relations 
for the love of him, shall receive a hundred fold now in this world, 
and in the world to come life everlasting ; Mark. x. 30. This is 
what I find true by my own present experience ; for I assure you, 

1 at this very moment receive that hundred fold ; the excessive 
pains I endure being so pleasing to me, through the lively hope I 
have now given me of my salvation, that I would not exchange it 
for a hundred times as much as I left when I forsook the world. 
And if so great a sinner as I am finds so much satisfaction in what 
I suffer, what consolations must they who are perfect be sensible 
of? For the anticipated fruition of those eternal pleasures which 
I now enjoy by hope, is not a hundred times only, but a hundred 
thousand times better than all the dehghts the world could ever 
afford me.' They were all astonished to hear a man of no learn- 
ing at all talk so piously and sublimely ; but it plainly appeared 
that what he said was dictated by the Holy Ghost." 

11. This is a demonstration, that God can give those who serve 
him more pleasure and delight, than they forsook for his sake, and 
yet not enrich them with temporal goods. And thus we see how 
much in the wrong those men have been, who could never persuade 
themselves that virtue had a reward in this Hfe. The twelve fol- 
lowing chapters shall serve for the better undeceiving such persons, 
wherein we shall treat of twelve wonderful fruits and privileges that 
attend virtue even in this life ; by which they who have hitherto 
loved nothing but the world, may understand that it is more de- 
lightful than they imagine. And though it is in some manner re- 
quisite for the perfect comprehending of this truth, that a man should 
have had some experience from the practice of virtue, because there 
is no one knows' her own worth so well as she herself does ; this 
defect may, nevertheless, be supplied by faith, since by means of it 
we believe the Holy Scriptures to be true, out of which I intend 
to prove all I shall say on this subject, that so no one may call the 
truth of it in question. 



THE sinner's guide. 97 



CHAPTER II. 

Of the twelfth Motive that obliges us to the Pursuit of Virtue, 
which is, the particular Care the Divine Providence takes of 
the Good, in order to make them happy, and the Severity with 
which the same Providence punishes the Wicked. — The first 
Privilege. 

1. Of all these favors, the greatest certainly is, the care God 
takes of those who serve him. From this, as from their fountain, 
flow all the other privileges of virtue. For, though providence 
extends itself to all creatures, yet we see how particularly careful 
it is of those whom God has chosen for himself; because they, 
being his children, and receiving as his gift, an affection truly 
fihal for him, he, on his part, loves them with a truly fatherly love, 
and his love is the measure of the care he takes for them. Yet 
no man can conceive how great his providence is, unless he has 
either had experience of it, or read the Holy Bible with much 
attention, and observed those passages there that treat of this 
matter ; for there is scarce any part of Scripture but treats on this 
subject. It turns on these two points, to ask, and to promise, as 
the world turns on its poles. So that, whenever God on one part 
requires our observance of his commandments, he promises a 
generous reward to those who comply, and severely threatens 
such as neglect to obey. This doctrine is so distributed, that 
almost all the moral books in it require and promise, whilst the 
historical verify the fulfilling of both ; giving us to understand 
how differently God deals with the just man and the sinner. But, 
considering how liberal he is, and how poor man, how ready he is 
to promise, and how backward man is to perform — we must needs 
find a great difference between what he requires and what he 
gives. All he requires of us is, that love and obedience which he 
himself has given us ; and yet in return of that httle which we 
hold purely of his hberality, he offers us inestimable riches for this 
life as well as for the next. Of all which the chiefest is, the 
fatherly love and providence wherewith he assists those he looks 
on as his children, and this is infinitely beyond whatever affection 
the most tender father in the world can show ; for never was there 
any one yet w^ho laid up such riches for his children as God does, 
which is no less than the participation of his eternal glory. Never 
did any man undergo so much for his children as God has done, 
having for their sakes shed the very last drop of his blood ; nor 
will ever any father take so much care of them as Grod does, since 
he always has them in his sight, and assists them in all their ne- 
cessities. This holy David acknowledges, when he says, Thou 
hast upheld w>e by reason of nfiy innocence ; and hast established 
13 I 



98 THE sinner's guide. 

me in thy sight for ever (Ps. xl. 13), which is to say, you have 
always watched so carefully over all my actions as to keep your 
eyes continually fixed on me. And in another psalm he says, 
The eyes of the Lord are upon the just : and his ears unto their 
prayers. But the countenance of the Lord is against them that do 
evil things : to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth, 
Ps. xxxiii. 16, 17. 

2. But because this divine providence is the greatest treasure 
a Christian has, and on his hopes and assurance of his being pro- 
tected by it depends the increase of his confidence and joy ; it will 
be to our purpose here to make use of some passages of the Scrip- 
ture, in proof of those immense riches wherewith God blesses the 
just. In Ecclesiasticus^ (ch. xxxiv. 19, 20) it is said. The eyes of 
the Lord are upon them that fear him, he is their powerful pro- 
tector, and strong stay, a defence from the heat, and a cover from 
the sun at noon. A preservation from stumbling, and a help from 
falling, he raiseth up the soul, and enlighteneth the eyes, and 
giveth health, and life, and blessing. The royal prophet says, 
With the Lord shall the steps of a man be directed, and he shall 
like well his way. When he shall fall, he shall not be bruised, 
for theLordputteth his hand wider him. Ps. xxxvi. 23, 24. What 
harm can he come to who falls so soft, and is supported by the 
hand of God ? He says again, in another place, " Many are the 
afflictions of the just : but out of them all will the Lord deliver 
them. The Lord keepeth all their bones, not one of them shall 
be broken." Ps. xxxiii. 20, 21. This providence is yet much 
more magnified in the gospel ; for our Saviour himself there not 
only tells us, that he takes care of all their bones, but of their very 
hairs, that not one of them may be lost (Luke xxi. 18) ; thus, to 
express in how extraordinary a manner he protects them ; for 
what is there he will not look after, who does not neglect the very 
hair of our heads ? If this be a declaration of his great concern 
for us, what the prophet Zachary (ch. ii. 8) tells us expresses it - 
no less : " Whosoever," says he, '' shall touch you, touches the 
apple of my eye." It were much had he said, " Whosoever shall 
touch you, touches me ;" but " Whosoever shall touch you, touches 
the apple of my eye," is still much more. 

3. Nor does he only look after us himself, but has also com- 
mitted us to the care of his angels : and, therefore, David says, 
" He hath given his angels charge over thee : to keep thee in all 
thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up : lest thou dash 
thy foot against a stone." Ps. xc. 11, 12. Thus, our good angels, 
like elder brothers, carry the just men in their arms ; for not 
knowing how to walk by themselves, they have need of another 
to lead them. Nor are the angels content to serve them thus in 
this life only, but even at their death too, as appears by the poor 
man in the gospel, who, after he was dead, "was carried by 



THE sinner's guide. 99 

angels into Abraham's bosom ;'' Luke xvi. 22. We are told also 
in another psalm, " The angel of the Lord shall encamp TO\md 
about them that fear him: and shall deliver them;" Ps. xxxiii. 8. 
Or, as St. Jerome renders it more expressive, " The angel of the 
Lord has pitched his camp about those that live in his fear, to 
preserve them ;" B. 4. c. 6. v. 15, 16, 17. What king has such 
a guard about liis person as this ? We see it plainly in a passage 
of the Book of Kings, where we read, that as the king of Syria's 
army was marching toward Samaria, with a design to take the 
prophet Elisha, the holy man took notice of the concern his 
servant was in at the sight of so formidable an army, and prayed 
to God that he would be pleased to open the young man's eyes, 
and let him see that there was a much greater army ready to de- 
fend them than that of their enemies. God heard the prophet's 
prayer ; whereon the young man saw the whole mountain covered 
with horse and fiery chariots, and Elisha in the midst of them. 
We read of such another guard in the Canticles (ch. vii. 1), in 
these words : " What will you see in the Sulamite," which is the 
figure of the church, and of a soul in the state of grace, " but the 
companies of an army," which is composed of angels ? The same 
thing is signified by the Spouse, under another figure, in the same 
book (ch. iii. 7, 8), where it is said, " Behold threescore valiant 
ones of the most valiant of Israel, surround the bed of Solomon : 
all holding swords, and most expert in "war : every man's sword 
upon his thigh, because of fears in the night." What is all this, 
but a lively representation made by the Holy Ghost, under these 
figures, of that care the divine providence has over the souls of 
the just ? For how can a man, who is conceived in sin, who lives 
in a body so naturally inclined to evil, and who is surrounded with 
so many dangers, preserve himself for several years from commit- 
ting any mortal crime, did not the divine providence secure and 
keep him from it ? 

4. This providence is so powerful, that it not only delivers us 
from evil and leads us to good, but what is more, very often, by 
a wonderful effect, draws even good out of evil, which sometinaes 
God permits the just themselves to fall in. This happens when, 
repenting for their sins, they thence take occasion to become more 
circumspect, more humble, and more grateful to God, for the 
mercies he has shown them, in freeing them from the danger they 
were in, and in pardoning them all their faults. It is in this sense 
the apostle says, that all things work together unto good to them 
that love God; Rom. viii. 28. 

If, therefore, these favors so highly deserve our admiration, 
how much cause have we to wonder at God's being so careful of 
their children, of their whole posterity, and of all that belong to 
them ? As himself has assured us, when he said, / am the Lord 
thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon 



Wo THE sinner's &UIDE. 

the children, upon the third and fourth gerieration of them that 
hate me : and showing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, 
and keep my commandments ; Exod. xx. 5, 6. We find him as 
good as his word to David, whose race he would not destroy after 
a great many years, though several of them had deserved it for 
their sins ; Kings viii. 19. Another example of his care we have 
in Abraham, whose posterity he pardoned so often for their father's 
sake. This care of his went so far as to promise Abraham that 
he would bless his son Ismael, though he were born a slave, that 
he would make him increase, and multiply him exceedingly ; and 
that he should grow into a great nation ; Gen. xvii. 20. And all 
this only because he was Abraham's son. We have yet a further 
proof hereof, in God's conducting Abraham's servant through the 
whole journey, and instructing him in his duty when he went to 
seek a wife for Isaac ; ch. xxiv. Nor has he only been merciful 
to a servant for the sake of a good master, but even to wicked 
masters for their pious servant's sake ; ch. xxxiii. 22, 23. Thus 
we see he bestowed great favors on Joseph's master, though a 
heathen, in consideration of the virtuous young man who lived 
with him. What mercy can exceed this ? Who will not serve 
such a master, who is so liberal, even so thankful to those that do 
him any service, and so careful of every thing which belongs to 
them? 

§. 1. Of the Titles given to Almighty God in Holy Writ, on 
Account of his Providence, — 5. This divine providence producing 
so many different and wonderful effects, God has, therefore, a 
great many different names given him in the Holy Scripture ; but 
the most usual and most remarkable is that of Father, as his be- 
loved Son calls him in the gospel, and he has been pleased it 
should be given him in several places of the Old Testament. And, 
therefore, David says, "As a father hath compassion on his 
children ; so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear him, for 
he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust ;" Ps. 
cii. 13. Another prophet, not content to call God Father, be- 
cause his care is infinitely greater than that of a father, speaks 
thus to him : " Thou, O Lord, art our Father ; Abraham hath not 
known us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us" (Isa. Ixiii. 16), to 
give us to understand, that these, being our carnal fathers, de- 
."served not that name in comparison of God. 

6. But because a mother's affection is, generally speaking, 
more affectionate and tender than a father's, God is pleased to 
call himself a Mother, nay, and more than a mother too. " Can 
a woman," says he, in Isaias (ch. xlix. 15, 16), "forget her infant, 
so as not to have pity on the son of her womb ? and if she should 
forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee in 
my hands : thy walls are always before my eyes." Can any 



THE sinner's guide. 101 

thing be more tender than this ? or can any man be blind to such 
proofs of love as these are ? 

7. Did we but consider it is God who speaks, he, whose truth 
cannot deceive, whose riches £ire inexhaustible, and whose power 
has no limits, what joy would such pleasing words as these bring 
us? But such is the excess of God's mercy, that, not content to 
compare his affection with that of common mothers, he amongst 
all others chooses the eagle, a creature the most remarkable for this 
love, and compares his tenderness to hers ; saying, by Moses, 
"As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, 
he spread his wings, and hath taken them and carried them on his 
shoulders;" Deut. xxxii. 11. The same prophet expressed this 
yet more lively to the people of Israel, when, on their arrival at 
the land of promise, he told them, " You have seen how the Lord 
your God has carried you through the wilderness all the way you 
went, as a man doth his httle son, until you came to this place ;" 
Deut. i. 31. As he does not disdain to call himself our Father, 
he does us the honor to call us his children ; as a proof of which, 
we have in the prophet Jeremy (ch. xxxi. 20), "Ephraim is an 
honorable son to me, surely he is a tender child ; for since I 
spoke of him, I will still remember him. Therefore are my 
bowels troubled for him : pitying I will pity him." Every word 
here should be weighed with attention, as coming from God, and 
should force from us a tender affection for him, in return of his 
tender love to us. 

8. It is on account of the same providence that he gives him- 
self the name of a Shepherd, as well as that of a Father. And 
to let us see that how great his pastoral care is, he says, " I am 
the good Shepherd ; and I know mine, and mine know me ;" John 
x. 14, 15. How is it, O Lord, that thou knowest them ? How 
doest thou look after them ? " As the Father knoweth me, and I 
know the Father." O blessed care ! O sovereign providence ! 
What greater happiness can a man enjoy than to be taken care of 
by the Son of God, just as his Father takes care of him ? The 
comparison, it is true, will not hold in all respects, because a be- 
gotten son deserves much more than one that is only adopted ; but 
to be in any manner whatever compared with him, is a very great 
honor. God acquaints us with the wonderful effects of this his 
providence, fully and elegantly, by the mouth of the prophet Eze- 
kiel, saying, " Behold, I myself will seek my sheep, and will visit 
them. As the shepherd visiteth his flock, in the day when he shall 
be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered : so will I visit 
my sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they 
have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring 
them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the coun- 
tries, and will bring them to their own land ; and I 'v\ill feed 
them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the 

12 



102 THE sinner's guide. 

habitations of the land : I will feed them in the most fruitful pas- 
tures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel : 
there shall they rest on the green grass, and be fed in fat pas- 
tures upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my sheep : and I 
will cause them to he down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that 
which was lost : and that which was driven away, I will bring 
again : and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will 
strengthen that which was weak, and that which was fat and 
strong I will preserve : and I will feed them in judgment" (Ez. 
xxxiv. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) ; that is, with great care, and with 
a particular providence. A little lower he adds : " I will make 
a covenant of peace with them, and will cause the evil beasts to 
cease out of the land: and they that dwell in the wilderness 
shall sleep secure in the forests. And I will make them a blessing 
round about my hill : and I will send down the rain in its season, 
there shall be showers of blessing (ver. 25, 26) ;" that is to say, 
wholesome showers, and such as shall do no hurt to the places 
which my flock feeds in. What greater promises can God make 
us, or what more tender expressions can he give us of his love ? 
For it is certain, that he does not speak here of a material but of 
a spiritual flock, composed of men, as the text itself plainly shows. 
It is no less certain that he does not mean fat lands, or an abun- 
dance of temporal goods, which are common to the bad as well as 
the good, but, like a good shepherd, he promises to assist those 
that are his with particular graces, on all occasions. It is what 
he himself has explained by Isaias (ch. xl. 11), where he says, 
" He shall feed his flock like a shepherd : he shall gather together 
the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and 
he himself shall carry them that are with young." Is there any 
tenderness like this ? The divine psalm which begins thus, " The 
Lord is my shepherd" (Ps. xxii.), is full of these charitable offices 
of a shepherd which God performs to man. 

9. As we call God our Shepherd, because he guides us, so we 
may call him our King, because he protects us ; our Master, be- 
cause he instructs us; our Physician, because he heals us; our 
Foster-father, because he carries in his arms; and our Guard, 
because he watches so carefully over all our actions. The holy 
Scripture is full of such names as these. But yet there is none 
expresses a more tender love, or discovers his providence more 
than that of Spouse, a title he often gives himself in the Canti- 
cles, and in other places of the Bible. It is by this he invites the 
sinner to call on him : " Thou art my father, the guide of my vir- 
ginity" (Jerem. iii. 4) ; which name the apostle highly extols ; 
for after those words which Adam spoke to Eve, " Wherefore a 
man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, 
and they shall be two in one flesh," he goes on saying, " This 
is a great sacrament ; but I speak in Christ and in the church." 



THE sinner's guide. 103 

which is his spouse (Gen. ii. 24 ; Eph. v. 31, 32), and we may in 
some respect say the same of every one in the state of grace. 
What, then, may we not hope from him who goes by such a name, 
and that with so much reason ? 

But what need is there of recourse to the Bible to seek for 
names, since there is not one that promises us any good, but 
may be appKed to God ? For whosoever loves and seeks him, shall 
in him find whatever he can wish. For this reason St. Ambrose 
says, " We have all things in Christ, and Christ is all to us. If 
you want a cure for your wounds, he is a physician ; if you are 
in a burning fever, he is a fountain ; if you are tired with the 
burthen of your sins, he is justice ; if you are afraid of death, he 
is life in you ; if you hate darkness, he is light ; if you would go 
to heaven, he is the way ; if you are hungry, he is your food." L. 
3. de Virg. See here how many names God has, w^ho in himself 
is but one ; for though he is but one in himself, yet he is all things 
for us, that he may relieve all our necessities, which are infinite. 

10. It would be tedious to count all the authorities of this kind 
in the Holy Scriptures. These I have taken notice of, for the 
comfort and encouragement of all that serve God ; and for the 
gaining of such as do not ; for it is certain there is no greater 
treasure under heaven than this. As, therefore, those persons 
who have served their prince upon some extraordinary occasions, 
and received certificates under his hand, and promises of consid- 
erable rewards for their services, are very careful to secure those 
authentic papers, comforting themselves, in the midst of dangers, 
wdth the hopes of obtaining the reward of their labors ; so God's 
servants lay up in their hearts all these divine promises, which are 
much more securely to be reHed on than any that are made by 
mortal kings. In these they place their hope, these are their sup- 
port in all their toils, their trust in all their dangers, and their 
comfort in all their miseries. To these they have recourse in all 
their necessities ; they inflame them with the love of so good a 
master and oblige them wholly to his service ; for, as he assures 
them, he will give himself entirely up to the procuring of their 
good, for he is their all. Thus we see that the main foundation 
of a Christian life is the practical knowledge of this truth. 

11. Can there be any thing in the world more precious or val- 
uable, or that better deserves our esteem and love? Or what 
greater happiness can a man enjoy in this life than to have God for 
his father, his mother, his shepherd, his physician, his tutor, his 
master, his mediator, his will, his defence, and, what is yet more, 
for his spouse, in short, for his all ? Has the world any thing 
comparable to this to give to its admirers ? How much reason, 
then, have those who enjoy such a benefit, to rejoice, to comfort, 
to encourage themselves, and to glory in him above all things? 
" Be glad in the Lord," says the prophet, " and rejoice, ye just ; 



104 THE sinner's guide. 

and glory, all ye right of heart ?" Ps. xxxi. 11. As if he said more 
clearly, Let others rejoice in their worldly riches and honor, others 
again in their birth and quality, others in their favor and esteem 
of their prince, others in their great employments and dignities ; 
but as for you, who lay claim to God for your share, do you more 
truly rejoice in this inheritance, which as far exceeds all other 
inheritances as God himself does all other things. This we may 
learn from the royal psalmist, when he says, " Deliver me, and 
rescue me out of the hand of strange children ; whose mouth hath 
spoken vanity ; and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. 
Whose sons are as new plants in their youth ; their daughters deck- 
ed out, adorned round about after the similitude of a temple : their 
storehouses full, flowing out of this into that. Their sheep fruitful in 
young, abounding in their goings forth : they have called the people 
happy, that hath these things : but happy is that people whose God 
is the Lord." Ps. cxliii. 11, 12, 13, 15. The reason why David 
delivers himself thus is evident, because in God alone we possess 
every good thing that is to be desired. Let others value themselves 
as much as they please on riches, but as for me, though I am a 
rich and powerful king, in God alone shall be all my glory. 
Thus another holy prophet glorified, saying, " but I will rejoice 
in the Lord ; and I will joy in God my Jesus. The Lord God is 
my strength : aud he will make my feet like the feet of harts ; and 
the conqueror will lead me upon my high-places, singing psalms." 
Habac. iii. 18, 19. This is the treasure, this the glory, which he 
has prepared even here for those that serve him. This is a great 
reason why all men should desire to serve him, and on this will he 
ground the greatest complaint he can make against those who 
serve him not. Thus it was he complained, by the prophet Jere- 
my (ii. 5), of his people : " What iniquity," says he, " have your 
fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have 
walked after vanity, and are become vain ?" and a little lower : 
" Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a lateward springing land ?" 
(ver. 31) as if he said. It is plain, it is not so, since by my means 
they have been so successful and victorious. " Why then have 
my people said : We are revolted, we will come to thee no more ? 
Will a virgin forget her ornament, or a bride her stomacher ? 
but my people hath forgotten my days without number" (ver. 32.), 
who am all their ornament, their glory and their beauty. If 
God complained thus in the time of the old law, when his favors 
were so great, how much more reason has he to complain now 
when they are so much greater, as they are more spiritual and 
divine ? 

§ II. What providence God uses towards the Wicked in puw 
ishment of their Sins. — 12. If the mercy of this blessed providence 
which the good enjoy, has no influence on us, let us at least be 
moved with the fear of that providence, if I may so call it, which 



THE sinner's guide. 105 

God uses against the wicked, and which measures sinners by their 
own measure, and deals with them according to their forgetfuhiess 
and contempt of the divine Majesty, forgetting those who forget 
him, and despising those by whom he is despised. God, to make this 
the plainer to us, commanded the prophet Osee (ch. i. 2) to marry 
an adulteress, to signify to his people the spiritual fornication they 
had committed, in leaving their true spouse and Lord, and ordered 
the child he had by his wife to be called Lo-ammi, a Hebrew word, 
which means " not my people," to show them that since they would 
not acknowledge nor serve him as God, he would not own or deal 
with them as his people. And that they might know him to be in 
earnest, he says to them, " Judge your mother, judge her ; because 
she is not my wife, and I am not her husband" (ch. ii. 2) ; giving 
them to imderstand, that since she had not observed the respect 
and duty of a good wife, neither would he show her the love and 
kindness of a true husband. Thus plamly God tells us he will deal 
with us just as we deal with him. 

They, therefore, w^ho live as if they took no notice at all of God, 
are abandoned by him, and left as a school without a master, a 
ship without a rudder, as goods without an owner, or as a flock 
that goes astray for want of a shepherd, which never misses fall- 
ing among the wolves. And, therefore, he tells them by the pro- 
phet Zacharias (ch. xi. 9), "I will not feed you ; that which dieth, 
let it die, and that which is cut off, let it be cut off : and let the 
rest devour every one the flesh of his neighbor." What he says 
by Moses, in his canticle, is to the same purpose : " I will hide my 
face from them, and will consider what their last end shall be ;" 
Deuter. xxxii. 20. 

13. He acquaints us more at large with this kind of providence, 
by the prophet Isaias speaking to his people under the figure of a 
vine, against which, for not yielding the fruit that was expected 
from it, after having been so carefully dressed and pruned, he 
pronounces this sentence : I will show you what I will do to my 
vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be 
wasted : I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trod- 
den down. And I will make it desolate ; it shall not be pruned, 
and it shall not be digged ; but briars and thorns shall come up : 
and I will conmiand the clouds to rain no rain upon it" (Isaias v. 
5, 6) ; that is to say, I will take away all those efficacious helps 
and succors I had given it before, and then must necessarily follow 
its utter ruin and destruction. 

14. Do not you think this sort of providence is much to be 
dreaded ? what greater misery can a man fall into than to be de- 
prived of the providential care of God, to be exposed to all the 
accidents of the world, and to all the injuries and calamities this 
life lies open to ? For smce, on the one hand, this world is like 
a tempestuous sea, a desert of so many wild beasts and thieves, 

14 



106 THE sinner's guide. 

since there are such numbers of misfortunes and accidents, so 
many and such powerful enemies to encounter with, so many 
snares laid for us, and so many dangers surrounding us ; and since 
man, on the one hand, is a creature so frail, so helpless, so blind, 
so impotent, so destitute of strength, and so much in need of ad- 
vice, what can he do against so many strong ones, if he wants the 
help and assistance of God ? What can he, who is a mere dwarf, 
do against so many giants ? How can he, who is so blind, avoid 
so many snares ? Or, alone and unarmed, how can he deal with 
so many enemies ? 

15. Nor does their punishment end here. For God not only 
turns his eyes from the wicked, whence it follows that they fall 
into such sins and miseries, but does himself produce and send 
them these afflictions ; so that the eyes which watched for their 
advantage before, are now open to their ruin: as the prophet 
Amos (ch. ix. 4) testifies, saying, I will set my eyes upon them 
for evil, and not for good ; that is, I who before looked on them, 
in order to secure them, will do it now to punish them, according 
to what their sins deserve. And the prophet Osee (ch. v. 12) 
tells us plainly, that God says, " I will be like a moth to Ephraim, 
and like rottenness to the house of Juda." And because this 
seemed too easy a punishment, and too lingering, he immediately 
threatens them with another more speedy and more severe : " I 
will be like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion's whelp to the 
house of Juda : I, even I, will catch, and go away, and there is 
none that can rescue ;" ver. 14. Can any thing be more terrible 
than this ? 

16. We have as clear a proof of this kind of providence in the 
prophet Amos, who, after telling us, that God would put all the 
wicked to the sword, for their sins of covetousness, goes on and 
says, " They shall flee, and he that shall flee of them shall not be 
delivered. Though they go down even to hell, thence shall mv 
hand bring them out : and though they climb up to heaven, thence 
will I bring them down. And though they be hid in the top of 
Carmel, I will search and take them away from thence : and 
though they hide themselves from my eyes in the depth of the 
sea, there will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them. 
And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I 
command the sword, and it shall kill them. And I will set my 
eyes upon them for evil, and not for good." Amos ix. 1, 2, 3, 4. 
These are the words of the prophet. And what man, on reading 
them, if he but considers, that they were spoken by God himself^ 
and does but observe what kind of providence he exercises against 
sinners, can without trembling see how powerful an enemy he has 
against him, and how closely he pursues him, having secured all 
the avenues, and lying continually in wait to destroy him ? What 
rest can a man take that reflects on this ? What stomach can he 



THE sinner's guide. 107 

have for his food, who has the eyes of God, red with indignation 
and fury, fixed on him? Who has such a persecutor and such 
an arm stretched out against him? For if it be so great a mis- 
fortune to be deprived of God's favor and providence, what must 
it be to have armed this same providence against you, and to make 
him turn that sword on you, which was drawn in your defence ? 
What an unhappiness must it be to have those eyes open to 
your destruction, which before watched for your security ; to have 
that arm, which was before stretched out to hold you up, extended 
now to cast you down; to have that heart, which thought of 
nothing for you once but of peace and love, have no other thoughts 
for you now but of affliction and sorrow ? What misery is it, that 
he who ought to shade, shield and protect you, should be changed 
into a moth to consume you, and into a lion to tear you in pieces ? 
How can that man sleep securely, who knows that God all the 
while stands over him, like Jeremy's rod, to punish and torment 
him ? What means can he use to frustrate the designs of God ? 
What, arm can withstand his arm? Or what other providence 
can resist his providence ? Did any man, says Job (ch. ix. 4), ever 
resist him and prosper ? 

17. This evil, in fine, is of such a nature, that the withdrawing 
of his fatherly providence from sinners is one of the severest pun- 
ishments he either inflicts on, or threatens them with in this life, 
as he himself has declared in several places of the Holy Scripture. 
In one of which, he says, " my people heard not my voice : and 
Israel hearkened not to me" (Ps. Ixxx. 12, 13) ; for which reason 
I will not take any notice of them, as I have done before ; " So I 
let them go according to the desires of their heart : they shall 
walk in their own inventions." Their condition must, therefore, 
grow each day worse and worse. He says also, by the prophet 
Osee (ch. iv. 6), since " thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, 
I also will forget thy children." As there is no greater misfor- 
tune can befall a woman than to be divorced from her husband, 
nor a vine than to lie neglected and unpruned, so the greatest 
loss a soul can undergo is, to have God withdraw his hand from 
her. For what is a soul without God, but a vine without its 
pruner, a garden without a gardener, a ship without a pilot, an 
army without a general, a commonwealth without a ruler, and, in 
short, a body without life ? See here how God encompasses you 
on all sides, that the fear at least of being forsaken by him may 
work on you, though his providential love and concern do not 
move you ; for fear and apprehension often influence those whom 
favors and benefits can do no good with. 



I 



l08 THE sinner's guide. 



CHAPTER III. 

Of the second Privilege of Virtue, that is, the Grace of the Holy 
Ghost bestowed upon virtuous Men, 

1, From this fatherly providence, as from a fountain, flow all 
the favors God bestows on those who serve him. For it belongs 
to this providence to supply them with all necessaries for the ob- 
taining of their end, which is their last perfection and happiness, 
by assisting them in all their wants, and infusing into their souls 
such virtues and habits as are requisite for this end. Of all which 
the chief is the grace of the Holy Ghost, because next to this di- 
vine providence, it is the beginning of all other heavenly gifts and 
privileges. It is the garment which was first given to the prodi- 
gal son, on his return to his father's house. And should you ask 
me what this grace is, I answer, that grace, as divines define 
it, is a participation of the divine nature, that is, of God's sanctity, 
purity and greatness ; by virtue of which a man rises from the 
baseness and filth he received from Adam, and partakes of the 
divine sanctity and beauty, divesting himself of himself, and put- 
ting on Christ Jesus. Holy writers explain this to us by this 
familiar example : When we take a piece of iron out of the fire, 
it sparkles and looks red like fire itself, but continues still to be 
iron, retaining the same name and substance it had before, 
though the brightness, heat and other accidents belong to fire : 
so grace, which is a heavenly quality, infused by God into 
the soul, transforms man into God in such a manner as to 
make him in some measure partake of the virtues and purity 
of God, without ceasing to be man. Thus was he transform- 
ed who said, "I Kve, now not I; but Christ liveth in me;" 
Galat. ii. 20. 

Grace is also a divine and supernatural form, by means whereof 
man lives suitably to the origin and source he proceeds from, 
which is supernatural and divine. And here it is the providence 
of God so gloriously exerts itself. For it being his will that man 
should have two lives, the one natural and the other supernatural, 
he has to this end given him two forms, which are, as it were, two 
souls, for each life one. Hence it follows, that as all the powers 
and sensations of the natural life spring from the soul, the natural 
form; so from grace, the supernatural form, flow all those 
virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost, that go to the support of 
the supernatural life. As ii one man should furnish another, 
that understands two trades, with two sets of tools, to work at 
them both. 

2. Grace is moreover a spiritual dress and ornament for the 
soul made up by the hands of the Holy Ghost, which renders her 



THE sinner's guide. 109 

so acceptable to God that he adopts her for his daughter, and 
takes her for his bride. It was in this dress the prophet gloried, 
when he said, " I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul 
shall be joyful in my God : for he hath clothed me with the gar- 
ments of salvation ; and with the robe of justice he hath covered 
me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned 
with her jewels" (Is. Ixi. 10) ; which are the several gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, wherewith the soul of a just man is adorned and 
beautified by the hand of God. This is the garment of divers 
colors with which the king's daughter, seated at the right hand of 
her bridegroom, was gloriously arrayed ; Ps. xliv. For from 
grace come the colors of the different virtues and divine habits 
wherein their beauty consists. 

By what has been said, we may judge what effects grace works 
on the soul it resides in. One of the greatest is, to make it look 
so lovely and fair to the eyes of God, that he chooses her, as has 
been said, for his daughter, his spouse, his temple and his habita- 
tion, where he takes his pleasure with the children of men. An- 
other effect is, to strengthen the soul by means of those virtues it 
brings with it, which, like Samson's hair, at the same time confer 
both force and beauty. She is commended for both these quali- 
ties in the book of Canticles (ch. vi. 9), where the angels, admir- 
ing her beauty, say, " Who is she that cometh forth as the morn- 
ing rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army 
set in array ?" Grace then, as we see, is like a complete suit of 
armor which secures a man from head to foot. It both beautifies 
and strengthens him in such a manner, that, as St. Thomas says, 
the least degree of grage suffices to overcome all the devils and all 
sorts of sin. 

3. A third effect of it is, to make man so pleasing to God, and 
to give him such power with him, that every action deliberately 
performed, saving those that are sinful, is acceptable to the 
meriting eternal life. So that not only acts of virtue, but even 
those actions that are done in submission to the necessities of 
nature, as eating, drinking, sleeping and the like, are grateful to 
God, and merit such a favor. For when the object itself is so 
agreeable and meritorious, whatever it does that is not sin must be 
30 too. 

Besides all this, grace makes man the adopted son of God and 
heir to his kingdom. It causes his name to be written in the book 
of life, and gives him a claim to the inheritance of heaven. This 
is the privilege our Saviour so highly commended to his disciples, 
when observing how pleased they were that the devils had obeyed 
them in his name, he said to them, ^* Rejoice not in this, that 
spirits are subject unto you ; but rejoice in this, that your names 
are written in heaven ;" Luke x. 20. This, therefore, is the great- 
est treasure a man can wish for in this life. 

K 



110 THE sinner's guide. 

4. It is grace, to conclude, that qualifies man for all kind of 
good, that makes the way to heaven smooth and easy, and the 
yoke of Christ light and pleasant ; it is this makes men run in the 
paths of virtue ; it is this that cures the infirmities of nature, and 
makes that easy and light which, whilst she was weak, weighed 
her down ; it is this that, by means of 'those virtues which proceed 
from it, reforms and strengthens all the faculties of the soul, en- 
lightening the understanding, inflaming the mind, refreshing the 
memory, fortifying the free-will, moderating the concupiscible 
appetite, that it may not give way to evil, and animating the 
heart, that it may not be too backward in the pursuit of good. 
And because all the passions of nature which reside in these two 
inferior parts are like so many hills that overlook and command 
the fortress of virtue, or as sally ports, through which the devils 
enter into our souls, to remedy this, grace sets a sentinel at these 
places to secure the passage; and this is some infused virtue 
sent down from heaven, and placed there to deliver us from 
those dangers which the heat of our passions may expose us to. 
Thus temperance, for example, secures us against gluttony, 
chastity against impurity, humility against pride, and so with the 
rest. 

But what is yet above all, grace brings down God himself into 
our souls, that he by his presence may govern, defend and con- 
duct them to heaven. There he is like a king on his throne, like 
a general in his army, like a housekeeper in his family, like a 
master in his school, and like a shepherd amidst his flock, 
exercising in a spiritual manner all their several ofl[ices. If, 
therefore, so precious a pearl as this is, which brings in such 
vast treasures, be the inseparable portion of virtue, can any 
man refuse to imitate the direction of the wise merchant in the 
gospel, who gave all he had for the purchase of this jewel ? Matt, 
xiii. 46. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Of the third Privilege of Virtue, viz. Supernatural Light and 

Knowledge. 

1. The third privilege of virtue is a particular light and wis- 
dom God grants the just, which, like all the rest, comes from that 
grace we have spoken of. For as it is the business of grace to 
cure nature, and to heal the infirmities occasioned by sin in the 
appetite and will, so it enhghtens the understanding, which was 
no less obscured by sin ; to the end that man, through the one, 
may know his duty, and by the help of the other may put it in 



THE sinner's guide. Ill 

execution. It is on this account St. Gregory says, in his Morals, 
" That as man's not knowing his duty is a punishment for his 
sins, so is his not being able to perform it when he does know 
it ;" L. 25. c. 9. For the same reason the psalmist so often repeats, 
The. Lord is my light against ignorance ; The Lord is my salvation 
against the want of power. By the one we are taught what we 
are to desire, and we are enabled by the other to bring our de- 
sires about ; but they both depend on grace. And, therefore, be- 
sides the habits of faith and of infused wisdom, which instruct us 
in what we are to believe, and what we are to do, there are add- 
ed, the gifts of the Holy Ghost ; whereof four belong to the im- 
derstanding ; which are, that of wisdom, to give us the knowledge 
of the sublimest things ; that of knowledge, for those things that 
are lower ; that of understanding, to dive into the divine mys- 
teries, and see how beautiful they are, and how consonant to 
one another ; and that of counsel, to direct us how to conduct 
ourselves amidst the difficulties so frequent to be met with in this 
life. 

All these rays of the divine light are reflected on us by grace, 
which, in the Holy Scripture is called an unction or anointing : 
*' And this anointing,^' says St. John, " instructeth you in all 
things ;" 1 John ii. 20. For as oil, above all other liquid things, 
is good both for the nourishing of light and for the curing of 
wounds, so this divine unction performs both, curing the woimds 
of our will, and enlightening the darkness of our understanding. 
This is the oil more precious than any balsam, which David 
gloried in, when he said : " Thou, Lord, hast anointed my head 
with oil f^ Ps. xxii. 5. It is plain he speaks not here of a corpo- 
real head, or of material oil, but of a spiritual head, which is the 
noblest part of our souls ; and, according to Dydimus, on this 
text, the seat of the understanding, and of the spiritual oil, 
which is the light of the Holy Ghost, that feeds this lamp and 
keeps it in. This holy king was sensible of the light this oil 
gave, as he himself confesses in these words : " The uncertain 
and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast manifested to me ;" 
Ps. 1. 6. 

2. Another reason is, that since it is grace makes a man vir- 
tuous, and since it cannot do this without disposing him to a sor- 
row for his past life, to a horror of sin, to a love of God, to a 
desire of heavenly things, and to a contempt of the earthly, the 
will can never be excited to such affections unless the under- 
standing receive a sufficient hght and knowledge to produce them. 
For the will is a blind faculty, altogether unfit to act, unless the 
understanding go before, and inform it what is good or bad, that 
so it may, accordingly, fix or withdraw its affection. St. Thomas, 
to this purpose, says, "that the knowledge of God's goodness 
and beauty increases in the souls of the just proportionably to 



112 THE SINNEa^S GUIDE. 

the love they have for him. So that, if the one advance a hun- 
dred degrees, the other will advance as many ; because he that 
loves much must know a great many qualities in the thing he loves 
which make it deserve his love ; and so on the contrary ;" St. Th. 
2. 2. qu. 2. ar. 4. What we say of the love of God is also to be 
understood of fear, of hope, and of the horror of sin, which he can 
never have above all things, if he does not know that it is so great 
an evil as to deserve such hatred. For as the Holy Ghost requires 
all these affections to be in the soul of a just man, he expects there 
should be cause to occasion and produce them ; even as when he 
designed to work different effects on the earth, he appointed 
there should be different causes and influences in the heavens. 

3. Moreover, since, as we have said before, grace makes God 
dwell in the soul of a just man, and God, according to St. John 
(i. 9) " is a Hght enlightening every man that cometh into this 
world," it is certain, the purer and cleaner he finds this habitation, 
the rays of his divine light will shine the brighter on it ; as a glass, 
the clearer it is, the brighter and the stronger it reflects the sun. 
St. Augustine, therefore, calls God ^' the wisdom of a purified 
soul" (Lib. 2. de Lib. Arbit.), for enlightening the soul, which is 
in such a state, with the rays of his hght, and instructing it in 
w^hat is necessary to its salvation. And what wonder that God 
should do this for man, since it is, in some manner, what he does 
for other creatures ? For they, by a certain natural instinct, know 
all those things that are necessary for the preservation of their 
being. Who has taught the sheep, among so many different 
plants, to avoid those which are hurtful to them, and to browse 
on those which are not ? From whom has it learned what crea- 
ture is its enemy, and what its friend ; and by this means to run 
from the wolf, and to follow the mastiff ? Is it not from God ? 
Now, if God, thus instructs the brutes, for the preserving of their 
natural life, how much more reason have we to think he will en- 
lighten the just with such a knowledge as shall be necessary to the 
maintaining of their spiritual life, considering that man stands in 
no less need of those things, that are above his nature, than brutes 
do of such as are suitable to theirs ? And if the divine providence 
has been so careful in providing what regards nature only, how 
much more solicitous will it be in furnishing us with such things as 
regard grace, which are infinitely more excellent, but, at the same 
time, far above the reach and power of man ! 

4. This example teaches us, not only that there is such a 
knowledge, but what a kind of knowledge it is, which consists 
not so much in the speculation as in the practice ; since it is given 
us more for the direction of our actions than for the improvement 
of our understanding, and is rather to instruct us how to perform 
all we do virtuously than how to discourse learnedly. For this 
reason, it stops not at the understanding, as that knowledge we 



THE sinner's guide. 113 

acquire in the schools does, but communicates itself to the will, 
and makes it ready in the performance of whatever this knowledge 
inclines it to. This is the property of the inspirations of the Holy 
Ghost, who, like an accomplished master, perfectly instructs those 
under his care, in all that is requisite for them to know. And, 
therefore, the Spouse, in the Canticles (ch. v. 6), says, " My soul 
melted away when my beloved spake." Thus we may see what 
difference there is between this and human learning. For, where- 
as the one does nothing else but increase the understanding, the 
other, moreover, governs and excites the will, and, by its virtue, 
searches unto all the recesses of our souls, doing all that is neces- 
sary for the reformation of each in particular. Whereon the apos- 
tle says, " The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper 
than any two-edged sword" (Heb. iv. 12) ; because it separates 
the sensual part of man from the spiritual, cutting asunder those 
unhappy knots which generally tie the flesh and the spirit to- 
gether, when the spirit, closely contracting with the wicked flesh, 
becomes one with it. It is the force and efficacy of the word of 
God that breaks this knot, and makes man follow, not the dictates 
of the flesh, but of the spirit. 

5. This is one of the chief effects of grace, and a particular 
privilege of virtuous men in this life. But, because carnal and 
sensual men, perhaps, can neither understand, nor will so readily 
beheve this truth, I will make it plainly appear to them, by sev- 
eral passages both of the Old and New Testament. In the New, 
our Saviour says : " The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send 
in my name, shall teach you all things, and bring all things to 
your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you ;" John xiv. 
26. He tells us in another place (ch. vi. 45), " It is written in 
the prophets, And they shall be all taught by God. Every man, 
therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh 
unto me." Isa. liv. 13. He hath told us, in like manner, by his 
prophet Jeremy, " I will put my law in their inward parts, and 
write it in their hearts. And they shall teach no more every 
man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, know 
THE Lord ; for they shall all know me." Isa. xxxi. 33, 34. In 
the prophet Isaias (ch. liv. 11, 12, 13), the Lord, speaking of the 
prosperity of his church, uses these words : " O, thou afflicted, 
tossed with tempests, and not comforted! Behold, I will lay thy 
stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. 
And I will make thy vdndows of agates, and thy gates of carbun- 
cles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children 
shall be taught of the Lord." He repeats the same again, else- 
where, by the same prophet: "I am the Lord thy God, which 
teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou 
shouldst go ;" ch. xlviii. 16. By these words are understood two 
sorts of knowledge, that of saints, and that of wise men. It is 
15 K2 



114 THE sinner's guide. 

that of the saints which Solomon speaks of, when he says, " The 
knowledge of the holy is understanding ;" Prov. ix. 10. For 
bare knowledge does but teach us how to know^, but prudence 
instructs us how to act by what we know ; and this is the know- 
ledge of holy men. 

6. Besides, how often shall we find this very same wisdom 
promised to the just, in David's Psalms. In one of them, he says, 
" The mouth of the righteous shall be exercised in wisdom, and 
his tongue will be talking of judgment ;" Ps. xxxvi. 30. God, in 
another, makes the good man this promise : " I will instruct thee 
and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go ;" Ps. xxxi. 8. In 
another, as if it were a business of the greatest consequence, the 
prophet puts the question, saying, "What man is he that feareth 
the Lord ? him shall he teach in the way he shall choose ;" Ps. 
xxiv. 12. And in the same psalm we have these words : " The 
salvation of the just is of the Lord ;" which St. Jerome renders 
thus; "The Lord discovers his secrets to those that fear him, 
and he will show them his covenant;" that is, his holy law^s are 
made known to them. This knowledge is a great light to the 
understanding, a delicious food to the will, and the greatest plea- 
sure man can enjoy. The same prophet calls it a pasture in which 
God fed him ; a water with which he refreshed his soul ; and a 
table upon which were placed such meats as might strengthen 
him against all the power of his enemies ; Ps. xxii. 2, 5. For 
which reason, the same prophet so frequently begs for this inward 
light, and for their inward instructions, in that divine psalm, which 
begins, " Blessed are the undefiled ;" Ps. cxviii. To this end he 
says, in one place, " O Lord, I am thy servant ; give me under- 
standing, that I may know thy testimonies;" ver. 12. In another 
place, " Open thou my eyes, O Lord, that I may behold wondrous 
things out of thy law ;" ver. 18. And again, " Give me under- 
standing, and I shall search into thy law, and I shall observe it 
wnth my whole heart ;" ver. 34. This is, in fine, the petition he 
so often makes in this psalm. Nor would he have done it with 
such earnestness, had he not been very well acquainted with its 
efficacy, and with the manner of God's communicating the same. 

7. All this being undeniably true, what greater honor can man 
receive, than to have such a master and such a school to go to, 
where the Lord himself teaches his elect this heavenly wisdom? 
If, as St. Jerome says, men in former times went as far as Rome, 
from the remotest parts of France and Spain, to see Livy, a man 
so renowned for his eloquence (Ep. 120, ad Paulin.) ; and if 
Apollonius, who had the false reputation of one of the wise men 
of his age, went to mount Caucasus, and traversed the greatest 
part of the world, to see Hiarchas sitting among a few scholars, 
on a golden throne, disputing with them on the motions of the 
heavens and of the planets; what should men do to hear God, 



THE sinner's guide. 115 

seated on the throne of their hearts, not to teach them how the 
heavens move, but how they themselves may move thither ? 

8. And, that you may not look on this doctrine as contempti- 
ble, hear the royal prophet's commendations of it ; "I have more 
understanding than all my teachers, because thy testimonies are 
my meditation ; I understand more than the aged, because I have 
sought after thy commandments;" Ps. cxviii. 99, 100. Nay, the 
Lord promises more than all this, by his prophet Isaias, to those 
that serve him. " The Lord," says he, " shall give thee rest, and 
shall fill thy soul \\dth brightness, and shall set thy bones at lib- 
erty; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring 
of water, whose waters should not fail ;" Isa. Iviii. 11. What 
brightness is this, w^herewith God fills the souls of his servants, 
but the knowledge he gives them of things necessary to their sal- 
vation? For it is he that shows them how beautiful virtue is, 
and how deformed ^dce ; he it is that tells them how vain a thing 
the world is, that informs them of the worth of grace, the great- 
ness of eternal glory, the sweetness of those consolations which 
the Holy Ghost bestows, the goodness of God, the malice of the ' 
devil, the shortness of life, and the general mistake of most men. 
God, as the same prophet observes, by virtue of this knowledge, 
makes his servants dwell on high, " that they may behold the 
king in his beauty, and look down upon the earth that is very far 
off ;" Isa. xxxiii. 17. Therefore, the things of this world are of 
so little value with them, because, besides their being generally 
so, they see them only at a distance ; but as to the riches of. the 
other world, they prize them at what they are worth, as having a 
very near view of them. The wicked, on the contrary, having a 
distant prospect of heavenly things, and standing so close by the 
earthly, undervalue those, and overrate these. This is what pre- 
serves such persons as partake of this heavenly gift from being 
either puffed up with prosperity, or cast down by adversity ; for 
they, by the help of this fight, see how little what the w^orld can 
give them is in comparison of what they have from God. And 
therefore, Solomon says, " The goodly man remaineth in wisdom 
like the sun, but the fool is changed like the moon ;" Ecclus. xxvii. 
12. Upon which w^ords St. Ambrose says, " That, as for the 
wise man, neither can fear move him, nor power change him; 
amidst his prosperity he is never proud (Epist. L. 2), nor melan- 
choly in the midst of troubles (Ep. 7) ; because virtue, strength 
and courage are the perpetual attendants on wisdom." Such a 
man's soul is always in an even temper; no change makes him 
either greater or less ; nor is he to be carried away by the winds 
of a new doctrine, but remains steady in Jesus Christ, immovable 
in his charity, unshaken in his faith. 

9. Nor are we to wonder at the force of this wisdom, since it 
is not earthly, but heavenly ; which does not puff up, but edify 



116 THE sinner's guide. 

which does not enlighten the understanding by its speculation, 
but inflames the will with its heat. Thus wonderfully was St. 
Augustine touched and moved, that, as is written of him, he never 
heard the psalms and hymns of the church sung but he wept. 
The words, entering in at his ears, sunk down to the very bottom 
of his heart, whilst the warmth of his devotion spread the truth 
of them throughout his whole soul. This made him break out 
mto tears, and, according to his own confession, gave him a great 
deal of joy and comfort. O blessed tears ! O divine school ! O 
happy wisdom, that bears such fruit as this ! Conf. L. 9. v. 24. 
Is there any in the world we can compare with this wisdom? 
Job says, " It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be 
weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold 
of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. No mention 
shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is 
above rubies," &c. Job xxviii. 15, 16, &c. After all these com- 
mendations, the holy man concludes : " Behold the fear of the 
Lord that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding ;" 
ver. 28. 

10. This is one of the greatest rewards that can be offered to 
excite you to follow virtue. And Solomon makes this proposal 
to encourage men to a good life : " My son, if thou wilt receive 
my words, and hide my commandments with thee, then shalt thou 
understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. 
For the Lord giveth wisdom ; out of his mouth cometh knowledge 
and understanding." Prov. i. 5, 6. This wisdom does not always 
continue in the same degree, but receives a daily increase of light 
and knowledge, as the same wise man has hinted to us : " The 
part of the just," says he, " is as the shining light, that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov. iv. 18) ; the day of 
this blessed eternity, wherein we shall receive the divine inspira- 
tions, I will not say, with Job's friends, by stealth, but shall have 
a full sight and knowledge of God himself; Job iv. 12. 

11. Of this true wisdom the children of light partake, whilst 
the wicked, on the contrary, live in such ignorance, that like the 
Egyptian darkness, they may feel it with their hands. We have 
a lively figure of the one in the land of Jessen, where the 
IsraeUtes lived, which always enjoyed the light: and of the 
other in the land of Egypt (Exod. x. 22, 23), which was quite 
covered over with darkness, a true emblem of that horrible blind- 
ness in which the wicked hve, as they themselves acknowledge in 
Isaias, when they say, " We look for light, but behold obscurity ; 
for brightness, and we have walked in the dark. We have groped 
for the wall, and like the bhnd, we have groped as if we had no 
eyes ; we have stumbled at noon-day as m the dark ; we are in 
dark places as dead men." Isa. lix. 9, 10. What greater blind- 
ness than what the wicked fall into every step they take ? What 



THE sinner's guide. 117 

greater blindness than for a man to sell the solid joys of heaven 
lor the vanities of the world ? What greater blindness than for 
a man not to be afraid of hell, not to seek after heaven, not to 
have a horror for sin, not to think of the last judgment, not to 
regard the threats or promises which God has made, not to be 
afraid of death, which may every moment surprise him, not to 
prepare himself for the making up of his accounts, not to see 
how short and momentary his delights are, whilst the torments 
that shall follow them are to last forever ? " They will not be 
learned nor understand," says the royal prophet, " but walk on in 
darkness" (Ps. Ixxxi. 5) ; from an inward darkness to an outward 
one, from the darkness of this life to that of the next. 

12. I shall conclude this chapter with a word or two of advice, 
which is, that, notwithstanding the truth of all I have said upon 
this matter, a man, how just soever he is, should not on this 
account withdraw himself from the humble submission he owes 
to the opinion and counsel of those above him, especially of such 
as are looked upon as the doctors of the church. For was ever 
man more enlightened than St. Paul or Moses, who talked with 
God face to face ? And yet one of them goes to Jerusalem to 
confer with the apostles on the gospel he had learned in the 
third heaven (Galat. ii. 1, 2) ; and the other refuses not the ad- 
vice of Jethro his father-in-law, though a heathen ; Exod. xviii. 
The reason is, because the inward helps of grace exclude the 
outward assistance of the church, since the Divine Providence 
has been pleased to allow them both to supply our weakness, which 
stands much in need of them. As, therefore, the outward heat of 
the air maintains the inward natural heat, and as nature, after all 
its care to procure the health of every particular, is assisted with 
such medicines as have been created for this end, so is the light and 
doctrine of the church a help to the inward lights and assistance 
of grace, and whosoever refuses with humility to submit to the au- 
thority of the one, is to be judged unworthy to receive the favors 
and helps of the other. 



CHAPTER V. 

Of the fourth Privilege of Virtue, that is, the Co7isolaiions which 
good Men receive from the Holy Ghost. 

1. I MIGHT here very well, after having spoke of the light of 
the Holy Ghost, which enlightens the darkness of our under- 
standings, count charity and the love of God, with which our 
wills are inflamed, as the fourth privilege of virtue, especially 
ance the apostle accounts it the first fruit of the Holy Ghost. 



118 THE sinner's GUIDE. 

But our design at present being not so much to treat of virtue 
itself, as of the favors granted to it, and charity being not only 
a virtue, but of all virtues the noblest, we shall forbear to treat 
of it here ; not but that we might speak of it in this place, though 
not as of a virtue, yet as of a gift which God bestows on the 
virtuous, inflaming their vdlls in an unspeakable manner, and 
making them love God above all things. The more perfect this 
virtue grows, the pleasanter it becomes, so that we may there- 
fore look on it as the fruit and reward, not only of the virtues, 
but of itself too. But not to be thought ambitious of speaking 
too much in commendation of this virtue, which gives us so many 
other occasions of speaking in its favor, I will assign the fourth 
place to the joy and comfort of the Holy Ghost, it being the na- 
tural property of charity itself, and one of the chief fruits of this 
same spirit, as St. Paul tells us, Galat. v. 22. 

2. This privilege is a branch of the former; because, as w^e 
said before, this hght, with which God enlightens his servants, 
does not stop at the understanding, but descends into the will, 
and there darts out the rays of its brightness, with which it en- 
tertains them, and gives them a wonderful delight in God. So 
that from this spiritual light comes the spiritual joy w^e speak of, 
as the material light produces the heat we perceive by our senses. 
This gave the royal prophet occasion to say, " Light is risen to the 
just, and joy to the right of heart;" Ps. xcvi. 11. We have treated 
on this subject elsewhere, yet we may venture to speak of it again, 
without any fear of repeating what we said before. 

3. For the better pursuing the design of this book, we must 
first explain the greatness of this joy, because the knowing of 
this will go a great way towards making men in love with virtue. 
We all know, that as all kinds of miseries are included in vice, 
so are all kinds of delight in virtue, those excepted which the 
wicked complain they have not. For which reason, man being 
naturally a friend to pleasure, these persons tell us, by their 
actions at least, if not by word of mouth, that they had rather 
enjoy what pleases them, though at the expense of their salva- 
tion, than not to satisfy their sensual desires, though hell fol- 
lows the consenting to them. Lactantius, writing on this sub- 
ject, says, " that men are frightened into a flight from virtue, and 
charmed into a pursuit of vice, because vice has a sensible pleasure 
attending it;" L. 2. de Falsa Relig. c. 2. This being the 
rise of so many misfortunes, he that shall disabuse men of this 
mistake, and show them plainly that the way of virtue is much 
more pleasant than that of vice, must certainly be very service- 
able to mankind in general. My design, therefore, is, to prove 
this to them by unquestionable authorities, drawn particularly 
from the Holy Scripture, the best proof we can bring for matters 
of this nature, since " heaven and earth shall pass away, but the 
words of God shall not ;" Mark xiii. 31. 



THE sinner's guide. 119 

4. Tell me, then, blind, deluded man! if the way to heaven 
be so rough and so unpleasant as you imagine it is, what means 
the prophet David, when he says, '' O how plentiful is thy sweet- 
ness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee!" Ps. xxx. 
20. Here he lets us see what delights the virtuous enjoy, and 
why they are unknown to the wicked, because God hides them 
from such. What, likewise, do these words of the same prophet 
signify : " My soul shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall be de- 
lighted in his salvation. All my bones," that is, all the powers 
of my soul, " shall say, Lord, who is like to thee?" Ps. xxxiv. 9, 
10. This is to teach us, that the comfort the just have is so 
great, that, notwithstanding it is immediately received by the 
spirit, it rebounds in such a manner on the flesh, that though its 
chief delight is in carnal tilings, yet, by the communication of 
the spirit, it is pleased with the spiritual, and places its satisfac- 
tion in God, and that with such transports of joy, that all the 
bones of the body being ravished with this sweetness, men are 
forced to cry out, " Who is like unto thee, O Lord ?" What 
pleasures are to be compared "wdth those we enjoy in thee? 
What content, what love, what peace, what delight can any 
creature give, like what we receive from thee ? What is it again 
the same prophet means by his saying, " The voice of rejoicing 
and of salvation is in the tabernacles of the just?" (Ps. cxvii. 15) 
but to tell us, that true peace and pleasure are no where to be 
met with, but in the dwellings of the just. He says again, " Let 
the just feast and rejoice before God ; and be delighted with 
gladness ;" Ps. Ixvii. 3. And this to show us, what spiritual 
feasts God often makes for the entertainment of liis elect, by 
gi™g them a taste of heavenly things for the refreshment of their 
souls. 

5. It is at these divine banquets they drink that delicious wine, 
the same prophet so highly commends : They shall he inebriated, 
says he, Lord, with the plenty of thy house, and thou shalt 
make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure ; Ps. xxxv. 9. 
Could the prophet have used more expressive words to show how 
these delights even force men to a hearty love of God ? For as 
one, that has drank a deal of wine, loses the use of his senses, and 
is, in that point, like a dead man ; so he, that has once drank of 
this celestial banquet, dies to the world, and to the irregular desires 
of what is in it. 

6. We read again, Happy is the people, that know what jubi- 
lation is I Ps. Ixxxviii. 16. Others would perhaps have said, 
Happy they w^ho roll in riches, who are enclosed with strong 
walls, and have their soldiers to defend them ? But holy David, 
who had a good share of these things, terms only him happy, 
who, by experience, knows what it is to rejoice in God, and that 
not with an ordinary joy, but with such a one as deserves the 



120 THE sinner's guide. 

name of jubilation ; which, according to St. Gregory, is a joy of 
spirit, we can neither express by words, nor discover by outward 
signs and actions ; L. 24. Moral, c. 3. Happy they, who have 
made such an advance in the love of God as to have experience of 
this jubilation ! It is a knowledge, which neither Plato, with all 
his wisdom, nor Domosthenes, with all his eloquence, could arrive 
to. For God resides in none, but in the pure and humble of heart. 
If, then, God be the Author of this joy, how great must it be of 
course, since the comforts, that come from him, are as equally pro- 
portioned to himself, as are the punishments he inflicts ? If, then, 
he punishes with so much rigor, with what sweet delights must he 
fill the souls of those that love him ? If his arm is so heavy, when 
he holds it out to chastise, how light must it be when stretched 
out to caress ? For he is more wonderful in his works of mercy 
than in those of justice. 

7. What cellar of rich wine is that, which the Spouse in the 
Canticles (ch. i. 3) boasts of her being carried into by her be- 
loved, and of being filled there with charity and love? What 
noble banquet is that, which the same Spouse invites us to ? Eaty 
friends, and drink, and he inebriated, my dearly beloved ; Cant. 
V. 1. We look on that man to be drunk, when, having had more 
wine than his natural heat can digest, the vapors fly up into his 
head, and rendering him incapable of governing himself, force him 
to follow the impressions they make on his imagination. If this 
be so, what condition must a soul be in, that has drank so much 
of this heavenly wine, and is so full of God and of his love, as to 
be overcharged with an excess of delight and pleasure, and to be 
made unable, with all its force, to bear up under such a weight of 
happiness ? So it is written of St. Ephrem, that he was so often 
overpowered with the strength of the wine of this divine sweetness, 
that his body not being able to support these delights, he w^as 
forced to cry out, " Retire from me a little, O Lord ! because my 
body is too weak to endure the force of thy sweetness any longer ;" 
St. John Clim. deg. 19. 

8. O unspeakable goodness! O immense sweetness of this 
sovereign Lord ! who communicates himself with such profusion 
to his creatures, that their bodies are too weak, and their hearts 
too narrow, to endure and contain the strength and fulness of 
such charms ! It is by this celestial wine the powers of the soul 
are lulled to rest ; it is this, that gives them a gentle slumber of 
peace and life; it is this, that raises the soul above herself; it is 
by virtue of this she knows, and loves, and enjoys such pleasures, 
as are far above the strength of her natural faculties. Hence it 
follows, that as water over a fire, when it has arrived to a certain 
degree of heat, forgetful, as it were, of its own quality, which is 
to be heavy, and consequently to tend downward, mounts up- 
wards, borrowing the natural hghtness of fire, which gives it this 



THE sinner's guide. 121 

extraordinary motion; so the soul, warmed with this heavenly 
fire, hfts herself up above herself, and, endeavoring to fly from 
earth to heaven, from whence this flame was darted, is transport- 
ed with the desire of enjoying God ; runs after him, with all the 
speed she can, and stretches out her hand to embrace him, whom 
she so passionately loves. But if she can neither overtake him, 
nor cool the heat of her flames, she pines and languishes under 
the loss of her \vish, and all the comfort she has is to send up 
her amorous sighs to heaven, crying out w4th the spouse, in the 
Canticles (v. 8), Tell my beloved that I languish with love. Holy 
writers inform us, that thcvse languishings proceed from the op- 
position the soul meets with, in the efi*ecting of her desires. 
Whereon, one of them says, "Be not discouraged, O amorous 
soul, for thy sickness is not to death ; it is for God's glory, and 
that the Son of God may be glorified thereby ;" St. John c. xi. 4. 
But what tongue can express the charms and pleasures these 
happy lovers enjoy, on Solomon's stately bride-bed, which was 
made of the wood of Libanus, the pillars thereof were of silver, 
and the bottom of gold I Cant. iii. 9. 10. Here it is the spiritual 
marriage-feast is kept. It is called a bed, for its being a place of 
rest and love, and where they enjoy such pleasures that, as St. 
John says in his Revelation, no man can conceive how great they 
are, but he that has experienced them. Though the knowledge 
of these things be hid from us, we may nevertheless frame to our- 
selves some idea of them. For if a man does but consider what 
an excess of love the Son of God had for him, in suffering such 
unheard-of injuries and torments for his sake, he cannot wonder 
at what we now say, since it is but little when compared to this. 
What will he not do for the just, who has undergone so much for 
sinners ? How will he caress and make much of his friends, who 
has endured such pains, as well for his enemies as for them! 
We have a token of this in the book of Canticles, where the 
heavenly bridegroom shows such a passionate tenderness to his 
bride, which is the church, and every particular person in the 
state of grace. Such amorous discourses pass there between 
them, that no other eloquence or love can express. 

9. We may also conceive it from the just themselves, God's true 
friends ; for if you look into the hearts of those persons, you will 
find their greatest concern and desire, and the perpetual employ- 
ment of their thoughts, is the service of God, and the putting 
themselves in a condition of doing something for him, who has done, 
and who continues every day to do so much for them, treating 
them with such sweetness and love. If, therefore, man, of him- 
self so unfaithful, and so imable to do any good, can nevertheless 
be so faithful to God, what is there that God will not do for him ? 
— God, who is infinite in his fidelity and love. If it is the property 
of God, as the psalmist says, to be holy with the h)ly, and good 
16 L 



122 THE sinner's guide. 

with the good (Ps. xvii. 26), and if man can arrive to such a de- 
gree of goodness, as we have said he can, how far will the good- 
ness of God reach ? If God should vie wdth just men on this 
point, how much will he outdo them in this glorious strife ? If, 
therefore, a good man is vdlling to do so much to make himself 
pleasing to God, what will not God do in return to comfort and 
please him ? He will do more than we can express or conceive. 
For this reason the prophet Isaias says. The ear hath not heard, 
neither hath the eye seen what thou, God, hast prepared for 
them that wait for thee; ch. Ixiv. 4. This is to be understood, 
not of the goods of glory only, but, according to St. Paul (1 Cor. 
ii.), of those of grace too. 

10. This surely may suffice to show how pleasant the way of 
virtue is, and that the delights of this world are not to be com- 
pared with what the just enjoy. For what comparison is there 
between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, between the pleas- 
ures of earth and those ojf heaven, the satisfactions of the flesh, 
and those of the spirit, the thoughts which come from the crea- 
ture, and those from the Creator ? It is certain the more excel- 
lent it is, the more capable it is of contenting us. What did the 
prophet mean else, when he said. Better a little to the just, than 
the great riches of the wicked ? Ps. xxxvi. 10. And in another 
place : I had rather he the abject person in the hou^e of my God, 
than dwell in the tabernacles of sinners ; Ps. Ixxxiii. 11. These 
words of the spouse, in the Canticles, teach us the same lesson : 
Thy breasts are better than wine. And a little lower : We will 
be glad and rejoice in thee, remember my breasts more than wine 
(Cant. i. 1, 3) ; that is to say, we will think of the most delicious 
milk of comforts, and caresses more sweet than wine, with which 
you feed your spiritual children at your breasts. It is certain, 
that neither material wine nor material milk is meant here ; for 
by these are understood the pleasures of the world, which the 
lewd woman in the Apocalypse (xvii.), seated over many waters, 
clothed in scarlet and holding a golden cup in her hand, made 
the inhabitants of Babylon drunk with ; thus drowning their 
senses, that they might be heedless of their ruin. 

§ 1. It is particularly in Prayer that the Virtuous enjoy these 
divine Consolations. — 11. If, on further inquiry into this matter, 
you should ask me, where it is particularly the virtuous enjoy 
these comforts, God himself will answer the question, by the 
prophet Isaias (ch. Ivi. 6, 7) : The children of the stranger, says 
he, that adhere to the Lord, to worship him, and to love his name, to 
be his servant: every one that keepeth the Sabbath from profaning it, 
and that holdethfast my covenant : I will bring them into my holy 
mount, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. So that it is 
in this holy employment particularly, that the Lord comforts his 
elect in such a manner. It was on this occasion, St. Laurence 



THE sinner's guide. 123 

Justinian said (Tract, de Ord. Lig. Vitse), " The hearts of the just 
are inflamed with this love of their Creator, whilst they are at 
prayer. It is then they are at times raised above themselves, and 
imagine they are amidst the choirs of angels, singing with them 
in the presence of their God ; it is then they love and sigh ; it is 
then they praise, weep and rejoice; it is then they eat, and are 
still hungry, they drink without being satisfied, and endeavor, 
with all the force that love can give them, to transform them- 
selves into their Lord, whom they contemplate by faith, whom 
they adore with humility, whom they desire with passion, and 
enjoy with the utmost heat of love. It is then they, by their own 
experience, find these words of his to be true : My joy shall he 
fulfilled in you f^ John iii. 29. This joy, like a gentle stream, 
spreads itself over all the faculties of the soul ; it enlightens the 
understanding, it pleases the will, it refreshes the memory, and 
makes them think of nothing but God, and they lovingly embrace 
what they are unacquainted with, and which yet they have such 
a passion for, that they had rather die than lose it. Thus the 
heart wrestles vriih. this divine sweetness, lest it should get away, 
being the only object of its wishes, as the patriarch Jacob did 
with the angel ; Gen. xxxii. 26. And thus, like St. Peter on the 
mountain, it cries out, Lord, it is good for us to he here; Matt, 
xvii. 4. It is here the soul has all that amorous discourse, which 
is in the Canticles addressed to her, whilst she, on her part, sings 
these charming airs of love ; His left hand is under my head, and 
his right hand doth emhrace me. Support me with flowers, and 
comfort me with apples, for I languish with love. Cant. ii. 5, 6. 
Then it is, the soul, inflamed with these divine heats, desires no- 
thing more than to break out of the prison of her body, whilst her 
tears are her food both day and night, because the time of her 
enlargement is not yet come. Life is the trial of her patience, 
but the object of her desire is death, and, therefore, she is con- 
tinually usmg these words of the spouse : Who will tell me where 
thou art, my hrother, who suckest the hreast of my mother ? When 
I shall find thee without I would kiss thee. Cant. viii. 1. It is 
then she is astonished at herself, and wonders how such treasures 
could be hid from her so long ; but finding it is a happiness which 
every man is capable of enjoying, she longs to run up and down 
in the streets and public places, and to cry out. Fools and mad- 
men! whither do you run? what is it you are in search of? why 
do you not run to the possession of such a treasure as this is ? 
Taste and see how sweet the Lord is ; happy is the man that puts 
his trust in him ; Ps. xxxiii. 9. When the soul has once tasted 
these spiritual pleasures, none carnal wall please her. Company 
is then a restraint on her, whilst she looks on solitude as a para- 
dise ; for all her desire and comfort is, to be alone with her God 
whom she loves. Honors and preferments are but a burden to 
her, and an estate ajid family a torment. She would not for all. 



124 THE sinner's guide. 

the world, no not for heaven itself, be deprived of her comforts ; 
and, for this reason, all her endeavors are to disengage herself 
from the world. She has but one love, and one desire ; so that, 
whatsoever she loves, it is for the sake of one alone, and this one 
she loves in all things ; she knows how to cry out, with the royal 
prophet. What have 1, Lord, in heaven, or what is there upon the 
earth that I desire besides thee ? My flesh and my heart faileth, 
hut God is the strength of my heart, God is my portion for ever. 
Ps. xxii. 25, 26. 

12. The knowledge of holy things seems no longer obscure to 
a soul in this state ; she sees them now with other eyes, and feels 
such motions and changes within, as are strong proofs of every 
article of faith. She thinks the day long and tedious, and the 
management of her temporal concerns is troublesome to her, 
longing till the night comes, that she may spend it in the com- 
pany of her God. She never looks on the night as too long ; the 
longest, on the contrary, are those she desires most. If they 
happen to be clear, with their eyes cast up to heaven, she admires 
its beauty and the brightness of the moon and stars, considering 
them quite differently from what she used to do, and much more 
cheerfully ; she looks on them as so many marks of her Creator's 
beauty, and so many mirrors of his glory, as so many messengers 
that come to bring her news of him, as so many lively drafts of 
his grace and perfections, and as so many presents which the 
bridegroom sends his bride, to endear and make her constant to 
him, till he himself shall come and lead her by the hand to this 
happy marriage, for an eternity in heaven ; she looks on the 
whole world as a book that treats of nothing else but of God ; 
she regards it as a letter from her beloved, and a token of his 
love. These are the pleasures and delights they who love God 
pass the nights in; these the quiet sleeps they enjoy. For the 
regular motions all creatures observe, are like a harmonious 
concert to the soul, that makes her slumber a little, and lulls her 
into the gentle and soft sleep, of which it is said, / sleep, and my 
heart watcheth; Cant. v. 2. And when her dearest spouse per- 
cei^'^es her thus at rest vidthin his arms, he takes care not to dis- 
turb her, and gives orders that no one presumes to wake her, 
saying, I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and 
harts of the field, that you stir not up, nor make the beloved awake, 
till she please ; Cant. ii. 7. 

What do you think now of such nights as these? which do 
you imagine to be the pleasanter, these, or those of worldlings, 
who spend their time, lying in wait to defile innocent virgins, to 
rob them of their chastity, and make them lose their honor and 
their souls ? Thus they miserably expose themselves to the hazard 
of their own lives, heaping up for themselves a treasure of ven- 
geance against that day, wherein God will punish them according 
to the hemousness of their crimes; Rom. ii. 5. 



THE sinner's guide. 125 

§ II. Of the Comforts they enjoy, who begin to serve God. — 
13. Perhaps you will tell me such extraordinary favors as these 
are for none but those who have already advanced in perfection 
and virtue. It is true they are for them, but yet God presents 
even those who are but just entered into his service, with all the 
blessings of his consolation. He feeds them at first like children 
with milk, and brings them by degrees to eat more solid meats. 
You see how the prodigal son was entertained at his return, and 
welcomed home with music and feasting. This is but a represen- 
tation of the spiritual joy which the soul conceives, when she sees 
herself escaped out of Egypt, and freed from the captivity of 
Pharao, from the slavery of the devil ; Luke xv. For how can 
a slave, when he has got his liberty, choose but to be glad of such 
a benefit ? What can he do less than invite all creatures to thank 
his deliverer with him? Let us sing to the Lord, for he has 
gloriously magnified, the horse and the rider he hath thrown into 
the sea ; Exod. xv. 1. 

14. If this were not so, where would be that providence which 
supplies every creature so fully, according to its nature, strength, 
age and capacity ? For it is certain, carnal men could never be 
able to enter into this new road, and trample the world under foot, 
unless God showed them such favors. To this end, his divine 
providence takes care, as soon as ever it has determined to disen- 
gage them from the world, so to smooth and plain the way that 
they meet with no rubs to make them stumble. This is admirably 
represented to us by God's leading the children of Israel into the 
land of promise, whereof Moses gives us this relation : When 
Pharao had sent out the people, the Lord led them not by way of 
the land of the Philistines, which is near, thinking lest perhaps 
they would repent, if they should see wars rise against them, and 
would return into Egypt ; Exod. xiii. 17. The same Lord who 
took such care to conduct the Israelites into the land of promise, 
after he had brought them out of Egypt, takes no less at present, 
to bring those to heaven, whom he is pleased to call to this happi- 
ness, after having made them quit the world. 

15. But I would have you to conceive, that though such as have 
arrived to perfection in virtue are caressed after a particular 
manner, yet, God is so good to beginners, that, considering their 
poverty, he helps them forward in the new" way they have under- 
taken, and perceiving they are still exposed to temptations of sin, 
and have passions to overcome, he gives them, imperfect as they 
are, so much comfort, that their joy does not fall short of what 
they possess, who are advanced much further. This he does for 
no other end, but to give them an entire victory over all their 
inordinate appetites, to make them break off with their own flesh, 
to wean them from the milk, that is, from the weak delights of this 
world, and to tie them to him with such strong bonds of love, that 

L2 



126 THE sinner's guide. 

they may never be able to break loose. If this does not convince 
you, consider what God has been pleased to signify to us by the 
feasts of the Old Testament, where he commanded the first and 
last day to be observed with an equal solemnity. As for the six 
days which were between them, they were no more than the 
ordinary days of the week, but these two they always kept with 
much greater veneration. What can this be but a figure of what 
we are now treating ? He ordered the first day to be kept sol- 
emnly, as w^ell as the last, to give us to understand that he makes 
much of those who serve him in the beginning of their conversion, 
as well as those who have attained the utmost perfection. This 
he does in consideration of what these have deserved, and of what 
those stand in need of, dealing with the one according to the rules 
of liis justice, by giving them what their virtue has deserved, and 
treating the other according to the dictates of his grace and mercy, 
by bestowing on them much more than they have deserved, on 
account of their necessities. 

16. We are never more taken with the sight of trees, than when 
they are in their flourishing condition, and their fruit is ripe. 
The day of betrothing and the wedding-day are always devoted 
to mirth and festivity. Almighty God, on the return of a soul to 
him, betroths her to himself; and when he marries her, he is at 
all the charges of the wedding-feast, which he makes according 
to his estate and ability, not according to the deserts and quality 
of his spouse ; and, to that purpose he says. Our sister is little, 
mid hath no breasts (Cant. viii. 8), and, therefore, she must live on 
another's milk. The bride, speaking to her bridegroom, tells him. 
The young maidens have loved thee ; Cant. i. 2. She does not say 
the maidens, which are those souls that have made a considerable 
progress in virtue, but those who are not of so ripe an age, that 
is, such as have but just opened their eyes to this new light. 
These, says she, have an ardent love for thee. For young lovers 
do usually express their passion with the greatest force and heat. 
This is what St. Thomas tells us, when, among several other 
reasons, he alleges this, that the newness of the state, of the 
love, of the light, and of the knowledge of divine things dis- 
covers those beauties to them, which they never perceived be- 
fore ; filling them with admiration, giving them at the same time 
a particular delight, and teaching them what returns they are to 
make him who has so kindly restored them their sight, after they 
had been so long blindfolded and in the dark. When a man first 
comes into any great town or noble place, he walks up and down 
for some time, and is pleased with what he sees; but having 
satisfied his curiosity with the frequent sight, he is less taken with 
it than he was before, nor does he admire it so much. Thus stands 
the case with those who first came into this new country of grace, 
for they are surprised to find such wonderful things. So that it 



THE sinner's guide. 127 

is not to be admireci, that beginners in devotion should feel more 
fervor in their souls, than old practitioners ; for the newness of 
the light and of their understanding divine mysteries, causes 
greater sensations in them. This, as St. Bernard remarks 
(Serm. 14. in Cant.), is the reason why the prodigal son's elder 
brother was not in the wrong, when he complained to his father, 
and told him, that for his so many years' service, without ever dis- 
obeying the least of his commands, he had never shown him so 
much favor, as he had done this extravagant, lewd son at his 
return home. This new love, like new wine, ferments at first, 
and as water over a fire boils up as soon as it feels the heat it 
never felt before ; the flame, after these first sallies, grows more 
strong and equal, though in the beginning it is more violent and 
impetuous. 

17. God entertains those, who enter anew into his house, with 
a deal of kindness and love : he bears all their charges at first, 
and makes every thing seem light and easy ; he deals with them 
as traders do with their customers, who give samples of their 
wares gratis, but will have their full price for what they sell. The 
affection we show little children is usually more tender, though 
perhaps not greater, than what we show those who are of riper 
years. We carry those up and down in our arms, but let these 
go by themselves ; and whilst these are laboring and toiling, we 
lay those to sleep, and let them take their rest ; without giving 
them the trouble of asking for their meat, we feed them ourselves, 
and put their victuals into their mouths. 

It is this kind reception new beginners find with God, and 
the manifest favors he shows them, which occasions that spiritual 
joy and comfort the royal prophet speaks of: The young plant 
shall flourish with thy drops ; Ps. Ixiv. 11. Now, what is this 
plant, and what these drops, but the dew of the divine grace 
with which God waters these spiritual young plants, which he 
has lately dug up from amongst the wild brambles of the world, 
and set in his own garden? These are the plants w^hich the 
prophet means, when he says. They shall rejoice in drops ; Ibid. 
This shows how great the joy of such persons is at their first re- 
ceiving this new visit. Nor are you to think that, because these 
favors are called but drops, they have no more in them than 
their name seems to promise : " For (as St. Augustine says) he 
that drinks of the river of paradise, one drop of which is more than 
all the ocean, is sure, though he drink but one single drop, it will 
quench his thirst forever." 

18. If, when you think of God, you are sensible of these com- 
forts, it is no argument against what has been said. For if the 
palate, when it is out of taste by any bad humor, carmot distin- 
guish what is bitter from what is sweet, but judges what is sweet 
to be bitter ; what wonder is it if your soul, corrupted with so 



128 THE sinner's guide. 

many vices and irregular affections, and which longs so earnestly 
after the flesh-pots and onions of Egypt, should not relish the 
manna of heaven and the bread of angels ? Wash your mouth first 
clean vdth the tears of penance, and then you will be able to taste 
and see how sweet the Lord is ; Ps. xxxiii. 9. 

What I have said being so undeniably true, is there any plea- 
sure in the world to compare with these ? Holy writers tell us 
there are two sorts of happiness ; the one, a happiness that is but 
begun ; the other, complete and perfect ; the latter the blessed 
above enjoy, and just men here on earth the former. What, 
therefore, can you desire better than from this very moment to 
begin to be happy, and even in this life, to receive the pledges of 
that divine marriage, which is to be solemnized in heaven, though 
it be proposed here but at a distance ? O mortal man ! whosoever 
you are, since it is in your own power to live in paradise, and 
to enjoy such treasure, go and sell your all, to purchase so great 
an estate for so small a sum. It is Jesus Christ will sell it, and 
he will let you have it, in a manner, for nothing. Do not defer 
the opportunity any longer, for every moment lost is of more con- 
cern than all the riches of the world. And though you may per- 
haps meet with an occasion of purchasing it hereafter, assure 
yourself yet the time you shall have lost will be a trouble to you, 
and will force you to cry out with tears, as did St. Augustine, 
"O ancient goodness ! it is too late I have known thee;" Solil. c. 
31. The lateness of this glorious saint's conversion, though he 
failed not of his crown, was the perpetual subject of his com- 
plaints and tears. Have a care, therefore, lest it should be your 
misfortune to deplore the loss of both, if you should be deprived 
of the benefits of glory, the inheritance of the saints in the next 
fife, and of those of grace, the reward of the just in this. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Of the fifth Privilege of Virtue, viz. the Peace of ConscieTice, 
which the Just enjoy, and of the inward Remorse that torments 
the Wicked. 

1. Besides the joy proceeding from the consolations of the 
Holy Ghost, there is another attends the just, which is the tes- 
timony of a good conscience. For the understanding of the na- 
ture and value of this privilege, you are to conceive that the 
divine providence, which has furnished all creatures with as much 
as is necessary for their preservation and perfection, being willing 
that the rational creature should be most perfect, has supplied it 
with all that was requisite for this purpose. And because the 



THE sinner's guide. 129 

perfection of this creature consists in the perfection of its will 
and understanding, which are the two principal powers of the 
soul, the one made perfect by knowledge, and the other by virtue ; 
therefore, he created the principles of all sciences, whence the 
conclusions flow, and the seed of all virtues in the soul, endowing 
it with a propensity to good, and aversion to evil, which inclina- 
tion is so natural and prevalent, that though a long habit of ill life 
may weaken, yet it can never totally destroy it. Thus we read, 
that, amidst all holy Jacob's misfortunes, there was always a ser- 
vant escaped to bring him the news ; even so he that sins is never 
forsaken by that faithful servant, conscience, who still escapes alive 
and safe, to show the wicked man what he lost by sin, and the 
miserable estate he is reduced to. 

This plainly demonstrates how vigilant Divine Providence is, 
and its love for virtue, since it has furnished us with a monitor, 
that never sleeps, a continual preacher, that is never silent, and 
a master and tutor, that never ceases guiding and directing us. 
Epictetus, the Stoic, was very sensible hereof, when he said, " that 
as fathers are wont to commit their young children to some care- 
ful tutor, who will diligently divert them from vice, and lead them 
to virtue, so God, as our Father, after creating, put us into the 
hands of this natural virtue^ called conscience, as it were of a tutor, 
that it might still put us forward in the way of goodness, and check 
us in wickedness." 

3. Now this conscience, as it is a master and tutor to the 
good, so it is an executioner and scourge to the wicked, inwardly 
punishing and accusing them of the ills they do, and mixing 
such bitterness among their delights, that they have no sooner 
tasted the Egyptian onion, but their eyes presently begin to 
water. This is one of the punishments wherewith God threatens 
the wicked by the mouth of Isaias, saying, " He will deliver 
Babylon into the power of the hedgehog." For God's justice 
delivers the heart of a wicked man, signified by Babylon, to the 
hedgehogs, that is, the devils, and to the pricks of conscience 
that attend sin, which, like sharp thorns, pierce the heart. If 
you would know what these thorns are, one is the deformity and 
hideousness of sin, which is so abominable of itself, that a phi- 
losopher was wont to say, " If I knew the gods would forgive 
me, and men should know nothing of it, yet I could not dare 
commit sin, because of its own deformity." Another thorn. is, 
when the sin is prejudicial to another, for then it appears like 
that blood of Abel spilt, which cried to God, and craved revenge. 
Thus it is written, in the first book of Maccabees, that king 
Antiochus had a full view of the mischiefs he had done in Jeru- 
salem, which so afflicted him that it hastened his death, and 
being ready to expire, he said, " I remember the evils that I did 
in Jerusalem, from whence also I took away all the spoils of gold 



130 THE sinner's guide. 

and silver that were in it, and I sent to destroy the inhabitants 
of Judea without cause, I know", therefore, that for this cause 
these evils found me ; and behold I perish with great grief in a 
strange land." Another thorn is, the shame that attends sin, 
which the sinner cannot be ignorant or insensible of, because it 
is natural for man to desire to be beloved, and to be troubled at 
being hated : for, as a wise man said, " There is no greater tor- 
ment in the world than public hatred." Another thorn is the 
inevitable fear of death, the continual uncertainty of life, the 
apprehension of the strict account that must be given of every 
action, and the dreadful horror of eternal torments ; for each of 
these things pricks and gores the sinner's heart in such a manner, 
that he can never think of this death, so certain on one hand, so 
uncertain on the other, without being extremely concerned, as the 
book of Ecclesiasticus says, because he is sensible that day will 
take vengeance of all his crimes, and put an end to all his sinful 
pleasures, it is impossible for any man to put this thought out of his 
mind, because there is nothing more natural to man than death is, 
and, therefore, the least indisposition fills him with a thousand fears 
and doubts whether he shall die or no ; for the excess of self-love, 
added to so violent a passion as fear is, make him afraid of every 
shadow, and puts him into a concern and apprehension where there 
is not the least ground for it : so that if any mortality should happen, 
any earthquakes, or thunder and lightning, the sinner is imme- 
diately disturbed by his conscience, and fancies that God sends all 
this to punish his iniquities. 

4. All these thorns gore the wicked at once, as one of holy 
Job's friends declares at large, whose words I will add, as a 
clearer proof of what I have asserted : " The wicked man," says 
he, " spends his whole life in pride, notwithstanding that he is 
unc-ertain how soon his tyranny may be put to an end. The 
noises of fear and terror are continually rattling in his ears" 
(Job XV. 20, 21, 22), which are nothing but the cries of his guilty 
conscience, accusing and reproaching him every moment; and 
in the very midst of peace, he is afraid of the snares and treach- 
eries of his enemies : because, let him live ever so quiet, his 
wicked conscience never fails of putting him into continual ap- 
prehensions. He cannot persuade himself that he can possibly 
return from darkness to the light ; that is to say, he does not be- 
lieve there is. any possibility of his getting out of the dreadful 
darkness he lives in, to enjoy the tranquillity of a good conscience, 
which, like a comfortable and clear Hght, rejoices and enlightens 
the most secret parts of the soul ; for which way soever he turns 
himself, he fancies he sees a naked sword pointed at him; so 
that, even whilst he is at table, which is, generally speaking, a 
place of mirth and joy, he is racked with all kinds of fears, 
distrusts and jealousies, "and imagines he is just beginning the 



THE sinner's guide. 131 

day of darkness" (ver. 23), that is, the day of death and judg- 
ment, and on which his last sentence is to be passed on him. 
" He shall be frightened with tribulation, and surrounded on all 
sides with misery, as a king is with his guards, when he is going 
into the field of battle;" ver. 24. This is the description which 
Job's friend gives of the dreadful torments those unhappy 
wretches suffer within ; for to make use of the saying of a phi- 
losopher, " God, by his eternal law, has ordained that fear should 
be the constant companion of the wicked ;" which agrees very 
well with the sentence of Solomon, who says, " that the wicked 
man fleeth, when no man pursueth ; but the just, bold as a lion, 
shall be without dread;" Prov. xxviii. 1. St. Augustine has the 
same thing, in short, when he says, " Thou, O Lord I hast com- 
manded, that every soul that is irregular should be its own 
executioner, and w^e find that it is so;" St. Aug. L. 1. Conf. c. 
12. There is nothing in nature that does not convince us of 
this truth ; for can you tell me of any thing in the world which 
is not disturbed when out of its order? what sensible pain -a 
man feels if he has but a bone out of joint? what violence does 
the element suffer which is out of its centre? and what sickness 
does not follow when the humors of our bodies are out of their 
due proportion and temperament ? Since, therefore, it is so 
natural to a rational creature to live a regular, orderly life, how 
can its nature choose, but suffer and be uneasy when life is irre- 
gular, and contrary to reason ? Job had a deal of reason to say, 
"Was there ever any man that resisted God, and yet lived in 
peace ?" Job ix. 4. Upon which words, St. Gregory says " that 
the order in which God has disposed of all things for the con- 
tinuing and preserving of them in their being, is no less the 
matter of our admiration than the power with which he has 
created them ;" St. Greg. Moral. L. 9. c. 12. Whence it follows 
that no one can disturb the order of the Creator, without breaking 
that peace which he has intended should be the effect of this 
order: because it is impossible for any thing to be at rest when 
it is out of the place where God had put it. And thus we see, 
that those things which were undisturbed, whilst they submitted 
to the order of God, no sooner break off from this subjection 
than they lose the peace they enjoyed before. We have an ex- 
ample hereof in our first parents and the fallen angels, who, as 
soon as ever they disobeyed the will of God, to follow their own, 
and went out of the order he had put them in, were deprived of 
their former happiness, and lost that content they had before. And 
man, who, whilst he continued obedient, was absolute over himself, 
when he cast off that obedience, found a war and rebellion within 
himself. 

5. This is the torment the wicked, by God's just judgment, 
are perpetually racked with, and of the greatest miseries they 



132 THE sinner's guide. 

can suffer in this life, according to the opinions of all the saints, 
amongst whom St. Ambrose, in his Book of Offices, asks, "Is 
there any greater torment in the world than the inward remorse 
of a man's own conscience ? Is it not a misery we ought to fly 
more than death itself or the loss of our estates, our health, or 
our liberty ?" L. iii. c. 4. And St. Isidore tells us, " There is 
nothing in nature which man cannot fly from but himself; for let 
him run where he will, he will still carry the sting of his own 
wicked conscience along with him ;" St. Isid. in St. L. ii. c. 36. 
The same saint says, in another place, " The greatest punish- 
ment that can be inflicted is that of an evil conscience ; if, 
therefore, you desire to hve in peace, follow virtue and piety ;" 
Idem, L. ii. Sinom. c. 36. This is so undeniable a truth, that 
the very heathen philosophers themselves acknowledged it, 
though they neither knew nor believed any thing of those pains, 
which our faith teaches us the wicked are to suffer ; and, therefore, 
Seneca asks, "What avails it to fly from the conversation of 
others ? A good conscience calls all the world to witness for it, 
whilst a bad one is always tormented, though in the midst of a 
desert. If what you do be good, you need not be ashamed to 
let the whole world know it ; but if, on the contrary, it be bad, 
what matter is it whether any body knows it or not, as long as you 
know it yourself? Your condition will be miserable if you take 
no notice of such an evidence, since every man's own conscience 
is as good as a thousand witnesses." Sen. Epist. 97. The same 
author tells us, in another place, " That the severest punishment 
which can be inflicted for any crime is, the very committing of 
it ;" Epist. 98. And he repeats the same elsewhere, saying, " If 
you have been guilty of any crime, you ought not to fear any 
witness that can come against you so much as your own self, be- 
cause you may find out some means or other to fly from every 
body else, but you will never be able to fly from yourself, for 
every wicked action you do is its own executioner ;" Epist. 45. 
Cicero has something to the same purpose, in one of his orations, 
where he says, " There is nobody so able as a man's own con- 
science is, either to cast or to acquit him ; and, therefore, an in- 
nocent man is never afraid, whilst the guilty lives always in 
apprehensions." St. Isid. in St. L. ii. c. 36. This, therefore, is 
one of those torments which the wicked are never free from : it 
begins in this life, and will remain for all eternity in the next : it 
is the never-dying worm, as Isaias (Ixvi. 24) calls it, that shall 
never cease to gnaw the consciences of the wicked. And it is in 
this sense St. Isidore interprets those words of the Psalmist (Ps. 
xli. 8) : " One abyss calls upon another ; that is," says he, " the 
wicked shall be carried from the sentence which their own con- 
sciences pass against them, to that of eternal damnation ;" St. Isid. 
in Sent. L. ii. c. 26. 



THE sinner's guide. 133 

§ 1. Of the Peace of Conscience which the Virtuous enjoy, — 
Virtuous men are free from this plague, because they are never 
tormented with the stings of a bad conscience, but, on the con- 
trary, enjoy the comforts they receive from the sweet fruits of 
virtue, which the Holy Ghost has planted in their souls, as in an 
earthly paradise and a private garden in w^hich he dehghts. So 
St. Augustine terms it in his book on Genesis, where he says, 
" The joy a good conscience gives a virtuous man is a true para- 
dise" (Tom. iii. Lib. 12. de Gen. ad lit. c. 34) ; and this is the 
reason why the church is called a paradise full of all kinds of graces 
and innocent pleasures for those who live justly, piously and tem- 
perately. And the same saint, in his Method of instructing the 
Ignorant, has these words : " You who seek after that true peace 
which is promised to Christians after death, assure yourself that 
it is to be found amongst the bitter troubles and pains of this life, 
if you will but love him that has made you this promise, and will 
keep his commandments ; for you will soon find, by your own 
experience, that the fruits of justice are much sweeter than those 
of iniquity ; and you will meet with a much more solid satisfac- 
tion from a good conscience, amidst all your afflictions and tribu- 
lations, than a bad conscience would ever let you take, though 
in the very midst of delights and pleasures ;" Lib. de Catech. 
rud. Hitherto the words of the saint, which gives us to under- 
stand that this comfort is of the nature of honey, which is not 
only sweet itself, but makes those things so, though of themselves 
unsavory, that it is mixed with ; so a good conscience brings so 
much peace along w4th it, that it makes the most painful life 
sweet and easy. And as we have said that the foulness and 
enormity of sin are of themselves a torment to the wicked, so, on 
the contrary, the beauty and worth of virtue, without any thing 
else, are comforts to the good : it is what the holy prophet David 
expressly teaches us, when he says, The judgments of the Lord 
(that is, his holy commandments) are true, justified in themselves. 
They are more to he desired than gold and many precious stones, 
and are sweeter than honey and the honey-comb. Ps. xviii. 10, 11. 
This holy prophet, who had tasted how sweet they were, took no 
greater pleasure in any thing than in the observance of them, as 
he tells us himself in another psalm, where he says, I have taken 
pleasure in the way of your commandments, as if they had been the 
greatest riches in the world; Ps. cxviii. 14. His son Solomon, in 
his book of Proverbs, is of the same opinion ; for he says. It is a 
pleasure to a just man to do justice (Prov. xxi. 15) ; that is, to act 
virtuously, and to do his duty. Though there are several causes 
for this joy, yet it proceeds chiefly from the bare splendor and 
brightness of virtue, which, according to Plato, is most incompar- 
ably fair and beautiful. In fine, the advantages and delights 
which a good conscience brings are such, that St. Ambrose, in 

M 



134 THE sinner's guide. 

his Book of Offices, makes the happiness of the just in this life 
depend on it ; and, therefore, he says, " The brightness of virtue 
is so great, that the peace of conscience and the assurance of our 
own innocence are enough to make our Kves pleasant and happy ;" 
St. Amb. L. ii. de Off. c. 1. 

The ancient philosophers were no less acquainted, by the bare 
light of nature, with the comfort that proceeds from a good con- 
science, than they were with the disturbances which attended a 
bad one ; as we may see by Cicero, who, in his Tusculan Ques- 
tions, says thus : " The life which is spent in actions of honor and 
virtue is accompanied with so much satisfaction and pleasure, 
that they who pass away their time thus, either never feel any 
trouble at all, or, if they do, it is very light and insignificant ;" L. 
S. Tuscus. He repeats almost the same thing in another place, 
and says, " That virtue can find no theatre, either more public or 
more honorable, than the testimony of a good conscience ;" Id. 
Ibid. Socrates, being asked who could live free from passion, 
immediately made answer, " A virtuous man." And Bias, another 
famous philosopher, being asked w^ho, in this world, was free 
from fears and apprehensions, answered, " A good conscience." 
Seneca, in one of his Epistles, writes thus : " A wise man is 
always cheerful, and his cheerfulness comes from a good con- 
science;" Epist. 23. So that you see how these philosophers 
were of the same opinion in this matter with Solomon, who says, 
All the days of the poor man are evil ; that is to say, tedious and 
troublesome ; hut a secure mind is a perpetual feast ; Prov. xv. 
14. It is impossible for man to say more in a few words : by 
which we are to understand that, as he who is invited to a feast 
is pleased with a variety of dishes, and with the company of his 
friends that are invited, so the just man is dehghted with the tes- 
timony of a good conscience, and with the sweetness of the 
divine presence, having such good ground to believe that God is 
in his soul. But yet there is this difference between these de- 
lights, that the pleasure a man has in a feast is but earthly, and 
transitory ; whereas this other is heavenly, eternal and noble. 
The one begins with hunger, and ends with distaste and loathing ; 
but the other begins with a virtuous life, is preserved and con- 
tinued by perseverance, and ends with eternal honor and glory. 
Now, if the philosopher, who had no hopes of any reward after 
his life, had such an esteem for the pleasure which a good con- 
science gives, at w^hat rate ought a Christian to value it, who 
knows very wtU what rewards God has prepared for him in the 
next life, and with what favors he honors him even in this ? 
And though this assurance ought not to be quite void of a holy 
and religious fear, yet this is such a fear as does not dismay, but 
rather strengthens him that has it, after a wonderful manner ; 
because it tells him inwardly, that his confidence is then more 



THE sinner's guide. 135 

secure and profitable, when it is tempered with, and kept in 
awe by, this wholesome fear, and that, if he had no fear at all, 
it would no longer be a confidence, but false security and pre- 
sumption. 

You see here another privilege w^hich the virtuous enjoy, and 
which the apostle speaks of, when he says, Our glory is the testi- 
mony of our conscience, that we have lived in simplicity of heart, 
and in true sincerity, not according to the wisdom of the world ; 
2 Cor. i. 12. 

This is almost all that is to be said of the greatness of this priv- 
ilege ; but neither what I have said, nor what I am able to say, 
can discover its excellence to him that has never had any expe- 
rience of it ; for how can any one explain the deliciousness of a 
meat to any one who has never tasted it ? This joy is, in effect, 
so great, that often, when a virtuous man is afflicted, and can find 
no ease which way soever he casts his eyes, yet if he but reflect 
on himself, he is immediately comforted with the consideration of 
the peace and quiet he finds in his own conscience. For he knows, 
that as for the rest, let it go which w^ay it will, it is no matter to 
him ; this is the only thing he has to look after. And though, as 
I have said already, he cannot have an evident knowledge of his 
innocence, nevertheless, as the sun, in a morning, enlightens the 
w^orld before we see it, by its advance towards us, so the testi- 
mony which a good conscience gives a just man, is a comfort to 
his soul, though this knowledge is not sufficiently clear and evi- 
dent. This is so true, that St. Chrysostom, speaking of the same 
thing, says, " Let a man be ever so melancholy, if he have but a 
good conscience, all his trouble vanishes like a spark of fire that is 
extinguished when it falls into a great river ;" Horn. 10. in 2. ad 
Corinth, c. 3. & Hon. 54. in Matt. c. 16. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Of the sixth Privilege of Virtue, viz. the Hopes the Just have in 
God's Mercy, and of the vain Confidence of the Wicked. 

1. The comfort of a good conscience is always accompanied 
with that particular hope virtuous men live in : of which the apos- 
tle says. That they comfort themselves %ip with hopes, and are pa- 
tient in their tribulations (Rom. xii. 12) ; advising us to make our 
hope the subject of our joy, and, in virtue of the same, to suffer 
with patience whatever crosses may happen, assuring us that God 
himself is our assistance, and the reward of our sufferings. This 
is one of the greatest treasures of a Christian life : these are the 
riches, this the inheritance of the children of God ; it is the com- 



136 THE sinner's guide. 

mon haven against all the storms of this life, and the best remedy 
we have against all our miseries. 

2. But not to deceive ourselves, we must observe here, that, as 
there are two sorts of faith, the one, a dead faith, which performs 
no actions of life, and is that which bad Christians have ; the 
other, a lively one, the effect of charity, by which the just perform 
the actions of life ; so there are two sorts of hope, the one a dead 
hope, v»^hich neither enlivens the soul, nor assists her in her opera- 
tions, nor comforts her in her troubles; such a hope as the 
wicked have ; the other is a lively hope, as St. Peter calls it (1 
Pet. i. 3), because it produces the effects of life, as those things 
do which have life in them ; that is, because it encourages, en- 
livens and strengthens us, in our way to heaven, and gives us 
breath and confidence amidst all the dangers and troubles of this 
world. Such a hope as this the chaste Susanna had, of whom 
we read (Dan. xiii. 42, 43), that after she was condemned to die, 
and as they were leading her through the streets, to be stoned to 
death, yet her heart trusted and confided in God. David had 
such a confidence, when he said. Be mindful, Lord, of thy word 
to thy servant, in which thou hast given me hope. This hath com- 
forted me in my humiliation ; because thy word hath enlivened 
me. Ps. cxviii. 49, 50. 

3. This hope works many and very wonderful effects in the 
souls of those who are filled with it ; and that in a greater mea- 
sure, by how much the more it partakes of charity and the love 
of God, which gives it life. The first of these effects is to en- 
courage man to continue in the way of virtue ; in hopes of the 
reward he is to receive ; for as all the saints testify, the surer man 
is of his reward, the more willing he is to run through all the 
miseries of this world. St. Gregory says, " Hope is so strong, as 
to be able to lift up our hearts to the joys of heaven, and to make 
us quite insensible to the miseries of this mortal life ;" Moral. 1. 
xvi. c. 13. Origen says, " The hope of future glory gives those 
persons much ease, who are toihng in this life for obtaining it ; as 
we see the hopes of victory, and of reward, mitigate the pains of 
the wounds the soldier receives in war." St. Ambrose says, 
" An assured hope of reward makes toil seem less, and lessens the 
apprehensions of dangers ;" St. Ambr. in Ps. xii. St. Jerome says, 
"Any labor seems light and easy, when we put a value on the 
reward ; because the hopes of what we are to receive make us 
think there is no trouble in what we have undertaken ;" Epist. 
ad Demet. c. 9. St. Chrysostom is much fuller on this matter : 
" If," says he, " a tempestuous sea is not able to frighten seamen, 
if the hard frosts and violent rains of winter are no discourage- 
ments to the husbandman, if neither wounds nor death itself can 
daunt the soldier, and if neither falls nor blows Ciin dishearten the 
wrestler, whilst they think of the deceitful hopes of what they 



THE sinner's guide. 137 

propose to themselves for the reward of their toils and labors ; 
how much less ought they, who aspire to the kingdom of heaven, 
to take any notice of the difficulties they may meet with in their 
journey thither ? Therefore, O Christian, consider not that the 
way of virtue is rugged and uneven, but reflect on what it will 
lead you to ; and do not, on the contrary, falsely persuade your- 
self, that the path of vice is smooth and pleasant, but think of the 
precipice it will bring you to." St. Chr3'S. Hom. 18. in Genes. O, 
how true is every word this great saint speaks ! for will any man 
be so mad, as willingly to follow a path that is strewed with flowers, 
if he is to die when he comes to the end of it ? And who is there 
that will refuse to take another that is rugged and uneasy, if it 
leads to life and happiness ? 

4. Nor does this hope serve only for attaining so happy an end, 
but assists us in the means that tend to it, and in bearing with all 
the miseries and necessities of this life. For it is this that sup- 
ports a man in tribulation, that defends him in danger, that com- 
forts him in afflictions, that assists him in sickness, and supplies 
all his necessities and wants, because it is by means of this virtue 
that he obtains mercy from God, who helps us on all occasions. 
We have evident proofs of this throughout the Holy Scripture, 
but particularly in the Psalms ; so that there is scarce any one of 
them wherein the royal prophet does not highly commend this 
virtue, and speak of its wonderful effects and advantages, as be- 
ing, without doubt, one of the greatest treasures and comforts the 
virtuous can possibly enjoy in this life. To prove this, I w^ill 
make use of a few passages of the Scriptures, but shall be forced 
to pass by many more than I can be able to quote. The prophet 
Hanani tells king Asa, The eyes of the Lord behold all the earth, 
and give strength to them that with a pure heart trust in him, ; 2 
Paral. xvi. 9. The prophet Jeremias says. The Lord is good to 
those that hope in him, and to the soul that seeks after him. And 
in another place it is said, that the Lord is good, he strengthens 
his servants in the day of tribulation, and knows all those that hope 
in him (Nahum i. 7) ; that is, he takes care to relieve and assist 
them. Isaias says. If you will return to me, and rest in me, you 
shall be safe ; your strength shall be in silence and hope ; Isa. xxx. 
15. By silence is to be understood here, the inward rest which 
the soul enjoys amidst all her troubles : now this rest is nothing 
else but the particular effect of this hope, which banishes all kind 
of sohcitude and immoderate trouble by the favor it expects from 
the mercy of God. The book of Ecclesiasticus says (ii. 8, 9, 11), 
" You who fear the Lord, p'ut your trust in him, and you shall 
ot lose your reward. You who fear the Lord, hope in him, and 
s mercy will be your delight and comfort. Consider, O ye 
*^dren, all the nations of the world, and know that nobody ever 
y^ioped in the Lord and has been confounded." Solomon's 
18 M2 



138 THE sinner's guide. 

advice to us, in his Proverbs, is this : " In all your ways think of 
the Lord, and he will direct all your steps ;" Prov. iii. 6. The 
prophet David says, in one of his psalms, " Let those who know 
thy name, O Lord, hope in thee, because thou hast never forsaken 
those that seek thee ;" Ps. ix. 11. And in another psalm, he 
says, " I have put my hope, O Lord, in thee, and therefore I will 
be glad and rejoice in thy mercy ;" Ps. xxx. 7, 8. And in another 
place he says, " Mercy shall surround him that puts his trust in 
the Lord ;" Ps. xxxi. 10. He has much reason to say, shall sur- 
round, to let us know that he shall be surrounded on all sides 
with this mercy as a king is with his guards, for the security of 
his person. He treats this subject more at large in another 
psalm, where he says, " With expectation I have waited for the 
Lord, and he was attentive to me. And he heard my prayers 
and brought me out of the pit of misery, and out of the mud 
which I stuck in. And he set my feet upon a rock, and di- 
rected my steps. And has put a new canticle into my mouth, a 
song to our God. Many shall see this, and shall fear, and they 
shall hope in the Lord. Blessed is the man whose trust is in the 
name of the Lord ; and who has turned his eyes from vanities 
and deceitful follies." Ps. xxxix. 1 — 7. From these words we 
may learn another extraordinary effect of this virtue, which is to 
open a man's mouth and eyes, that he may be sensible, by his 
own experience, of the fatherly tenderness of God, and may sing 
a new song with a new delight, for the new favor he has received, 
to vdt, the assistance he hoped for. If we were to cite all the 
verses in the Psalms, nay, and all the entire psalms that treat on 
the subject, we should never have done; for the whole psalm 
which begins, " They who trust in the Lord are like Mount Sion," 
is to this purpose ; Ps. cxxiv. Heb. cxxv. And so is the psalm 
which begins, " He who dwells in the secret place of the Most 
High ;" Ps. xc. Heb. xci. They neither of them speak of any 
thing else but the extrordinary advantages of those who put their 
trust in God, and live under his protection. For this reason, St. 
Bernard, writing on these words of the psalm, " O Lord, thou art 
my refuge," speaks thus : " Whatever I am to do, or whatever I 
am to omit, whatever I am to suffer, or whatever I am to desire, 
you, Lord, are my hope. It is this hope that makes you per- 
form every thing you have promised, and it is you that are the chief 
cause of this hope of mine. Let another allege the good works 
he has done, and please himself with having undergone all the 
heat and burthen of the day ; let him say, with the Pharisee, that 
he has fasted twice a week, and that he is not as other men ; T 
for my part, A\dll cry out with the prophet. It is good for me 
cleave to the Lord, and to put my trust in God ; Ps. Ixxii. 28. _ 
any one promises me a reward, it is by your mercy alone th '- 
shall hope to obtain it : if any one should make war agains^^> 



THE sinner's guide. 139 

my hopes of overcoming shall be in you. Should the world set 
on me, should the devil roar at me, should the flesh jebel against 
the spirit, I will hope in none but you. Since, therefore, the Lord 
is alone able to assist us, why do we not banish immediately out of 
our hearts all these vain and deceitful hopes ? And why do not 
we, with fervor and devotion, stick to so secure a hope as this is?" 
The saint, immediately after, has these words ; " Faith says, God 
has laid up inestimable benefits for those that serve him faithfully ; 
but Hope says, it is for me that keeps them ; and as if this were 
not enough. Charity cries out, I will hasten and take possession of 
them;" St. Bern. Serm. 9. Ps. xc. 2. 

o. Behold how advantageous this virtue is, and how necessary 
on several occasions. It is like a secure haven which the just put 
in at in bad weather ; it is like a strong shield to keep off the 
attempts of the world ; it is like a magazine of corn in time of 
famine, whither the poor resort to relieve their w^ants ; it is the tent 
and shade which God promises his elect, by the prophet Isaias, 
to shelter them from the burning heats of summer, and from the 
storms and tempests of w^inter ; that is, from the prosperity and 
adversity of this world. To conclude, it is a universal remedy 
for all our evil, because it is certain that whatsoever we hope with 
justice, faith and prudence to receive from God, we shall not fail 
of obtaining it, provided it is for our good. For which reason, 
St. Cyprian says, "that God's mercy is a fountain of healing 
waters, that hope is a vessel to receive them, and that the cure 
will be proportioned to the largeness of the vessel ; for if we con- 
sider the fountain, it is impossible it should ever be dried up." 
So that as God himself told the children of Israel (Josu. i. 3), 
that whatever place they did but so much as set their foot on, it 
should be theirs ; so, as much mercy as man shall put his confi- 
dence in, shall be his ow^n. So that, according to this, he who, 
inspired by God, shall hope for all things, shall accordingly obtain 
aU things. Thus, this hope seems to be a resemblance of the di- 
vine virtue and power which redounds to the honor of God. For, 
as St. Bernard very well observes, " nothing so much discovers 
the onmipotence of God, as that we see he is not only almighty 
himself, but that he in some manner makes all those so who hope 
in him ;" Serm. 85. in Cant. Did not Josue partake of that om- 
nipotence, who from the earth commanded the sun to stand still 
in the firmament ? Josu. x. 13. Nor was his power less, who bid 
king Ezechias choose which he would, either to have the sun go. 
back or advance so many degrees ; 4 Kings xx. 9, 11 ; Isa. xxxviii. 
8. It is his giving his servant such power as this, that promotes 
the greatness of his glory in a particular manner ; for if Nebu- 
chodonosor, the great long of the Assyrians, valued himself on 
having so many princes to obey and serve him, that were kings as. 
well as he, how much more reason has Almighty God to glorify 



140 THE sinner's guide. 

himselfj and say that those who serve him are in some measure 
godsj inasmuch as he communicates so much of his power to 
them. 

§ I. Of the vain Hopes of the Wicked. — 6. You see here what 
a vast treasure the virtuous enjoy, whilst the wicked have no 
share of it ; because, though they have not entirely lost all hope, 
yet what they have is only a dead one ; because it is deprived of 
its life, so that it cannot work any of those effects on them which 
we have spoken of. For as nothing enlivens hope so much as a 
good conscience, so nothing ruins it more than a bad one, be- 
cause it generally walks in dread and fear, as being sensible how 
unworthy it is of the Almighty's grace. So that distrust and 
fear are the inseparable companions of a bad conscience, as the 
shadow is of the body. By which it appears, that such as man's 
happiness is, such is his confidence ; for as he places his happi- 
ness in worldly treasures, so his trust is in them, because all his 
glory is in them, and it is to them he has recourse in time of 
affliction. The Book of Wisdom takes notice of this kind of hope; 
where it is said, that " the hope of the wicked is like a flock of 
wool^ which is blown away by the wind, and like a Hght foam 
which is scattered by the waves, and like a cloud of smoke which 
vanishes in the air ;" ch. v. 15. Judge by this how vain such a 
hope must be. 

7. Nor is this all ; for it is not only an unprofitable but a preju- 
dicial and deceitful hope, as God himself has declared to us by 
the prophet Isaias, saying, " Wo to you, children, that have for- 
saken your Father, who have taken counsel, but not of me, who 
have begun a web, but not in my spirit, that you might add sin 
to sin. You have sent into Egypt for help without consulting me, 
expecting help from Pharao's forces, and putting your trust in the 
protection of Egypt. But Pharao's strength shall turn to your 
confusion, and the trust which you placed in Egypt's protection 
shall be to your disgrace. All those that have trusted in the 'peo- 
ple have been confounded, because they could neither help them 
nor do them any good ; on the contrary, they have put them to 
greater shame and confusion." Isa. xxxi. 1, 3. These are the 
prophet's own words, who, not thinking that he has said enough, 
yet continues in the next chapter to make the same reproach to 
them, saying, " Wo to those that go down for help into Egypt, 
placing their trust in their horses, and confiding in their chariots, 
because there are many, and in their horses, because they are very 
strong, who have not their hope in the Holy of Israel, nor sought 
after the Lord. For the Egyptian is a man and no God, and their 
horses are flesh and not spirit ; and the Lord will stretch out his 
hand, and both he that assists and he that assisted shall fall, and 
they shall be all destroyed together." Isa. xxxi. 1, 3. 

8. See here the difference there is between the hope of the 



THE sinner's guide. 141 

just and that of the wicked ; for the hope the wicked have is that 
of the flesh ; but the spirit, that of the just. Or, if this does not 
thoroughly express it, man is the hope of the wicked, whilst the 
hope of the just is God; by which it appears that there is the 
same difference between these two hopes, that there is between 
God and man. It is on this account the psalmist, with a deal 
of reason, advises us to beware of the one, and invites us to the 
other, with these words : " Put not your trust in princes, nor in 
the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. Their Hfe shall 
have no end, and they shall return to the earth out of which they 
have been created, and then all their designs shall perish. Hap- 
py is the man who has the God of Jacob for to help him, and 
whose hope is in the Lord his God, who created heaven and 
earth, the sea, and all that is in them." Ps. clxv. 3, 4. 5. Here 
we plainly see how different these two hopes are. The same 
prophet expresses it again in another psalm, where he says, " Our 
enemies have relied upon their chariots and their horses; but as 
for us, we will call upon the name of the Lord our God. They 
have been taken and are fallen, but we have risen and stand 
upright." Ps. xix. 8, 9. Consider now how the effects of their 
hopes are proportioned, to what they are founded on, since ruin 
and destruction are the consequences of the one, and victory and 
honor of the other. 

9. For this reason, they who rely on the first of these hopes 
are rightly compared to the man in the gospel, who built his 
house on the sand, which was beat down by the first storm that 
arose ; but they who rely on the other, are like him that built his 
house on a firm rock, so that neither wdnds nor waves, nor any 
tempests whatever, were able to shake it; Matt. vii. 24, 25, 26, 
27. The prophet Jeremy explains the same difference by a very 
proper comparison: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, 
and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the 
Lord. For he shall be like tamarick in the desert, and he shall 
not see when good shall come ; but he shall dwell in dryness in 
the desert, in a salt land and not inhabited." Jer. xlii. 5, 6. But 
speaking immediately after of the just, he says, " Blessed be the 
man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confi- 
dence. And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, 
that spreadeth out its root towards moisture; and it shall not 
fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, 
and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall 
it cease at any time to bring forth fruit." Ibid. ver. 7. 8. Now 
what more need be said, were men in their right senses, to show 
how different the condition of the virtuous is from that of the 
wicked, and how much more happy they are than these, on the 
bare account of hope itself. Is it possible for a tree to flourish 
better in any place, than in such a one as the prophet has here 



142 THE sinner's guide. 

represented ? it fares exactly after the same manner with a virtu- 
ous man, for there is nothing imaginable but what goes well with 
him, because he is planted near the streams of the waters of 
divine grace. But, on the other hand, it is impossible for a tree 
to be in a worse condition, than to branch all out into wood, and 
to bear no fruit, because of its being set in a bad ground, and in 
a place where no one can come to prune it. This may convince 
the v^dcked, that it is their greatest misery to turn away their 
eyes and hearts from God, who is the fountain of living waters, 
to fix them on creatures, and to rely on their assistance, who are 
themselves so weak, and so deceitful, and may be truly called, 
"a dry, barren and uninhabitable land." By this we may see 
how much the world deserves our tears, being planted in so bad 
a soil, as having placed its hope in things that are so unable to 
assist it, if that may be called a hope, which is in itself so far 
from being so, that it is, on the contrary, nothing but confusion 
and deceit. 

10. What misery is to be compared with this ? Can there be 
any greater poverty, than to live without this hope ? For if sin 
has reduced man to such a low condition, that he can find no 
relief, but from the hope he has in God's mercy, what will be- 
come of him, if this anchor, which is the only support left him, 
should fail ? We see all other creatures are in their way perfect 
at their birth, and provided with all things necessary for the 
preservation of their being. Man, on the contrary, by reason of 
sin, comes in such an imperfect manner into the world, that he 
has scarce any thing in himself that he stands in need of, but 
requires that every thing should be brought to him, and lives on 
the alms which Almighty God's mercy distributes. If, therefore, 
he were destitute of this means, what kind of life would his be, 
but an imperfect and defective one, subject to a thousand mise- 
ries and wants ? What is it else, but to live without hope, to 
live without God ? What, therefore, has man left of his ancient 
patrimony to live on, if this support be taken from him? Is 
there any nation in the world so barbarous as not to have some 
knowledge of a God, as not to pay some kind of honor and 
worship to him, or to hope for some favor from his providential 
care ? When Moses had been absent but for a little while from 
the children of Israel, they imagined they were without their 
God ; and being as yet very raw and ignorant, they immediately 
cried out to Aaron to make them a God, because they were afraid 
to go on any farther without one. By which it appears, that 
man i^ taught by nature that there must of necessity be a God, 
though he is not always so happy as to know the true, and that 
he is sensible of his own weakness, though he is at the same 
time ignorant of the cause of it, and, therefore, runs naturally to 
God for a remedy against it. So that, as the ivy seeks some 



THE sinner's guide. 143 

tree to support it, that so it may creep upward, not being able to 
support itself, and as woman naturally has recourse to the assist- 
ance and protection of man, her own imperfection telling her 
she wants his help, so human nature, being reduced to the utmost 
extremity, seeks after God to defend and protect her. And 
since nothing is more evident than this, what kind of life must 
those men live, who are unhappily neglected and forsaken by 
God? 

11. I would willingly know of those who are in such a condi- 
tion, who it is that comforts them in their afflictions; to whom 
they have recourse in dangers ; who looks after them when they 
are sick ; to whom they can discover their ailments ; whom they 
consult in their difficult affairs ; with whom they hold a corres- 
pondence, with whom they converse, and whom they desire to 
assist in all their necessities ; with whom they discourse, lie down 
and rise. In short, how can they, who are deprived of this help, 
get out of the confusion and disturbances of tliis hfe ? If a body 
cannot Hve without a soul, how is it possible for a soul to live 
without God, who is as absolutely necessary for preserving the hfe 
of the soul, as the soul is for preserving that of the body ? And 
if, as we have said before, a lively hope is the anchor of life, what 
man will be so rash as to venture out into the stormy sea of this 
world, without carrying this anchor along with him ? If hope is 
the shield with which we are to defend ourselves against our 
enemies, how can men dare to go without that shield into the 
very midst of so many foes ? If hope is the staff that has sup- 
ported human nature ever since the general distemper wherewith 
our first parents infected it, where will feeble and impotent man 
be, if he has not this staff to keep him up ? 

12. We have here sufficiently explained the difference there is 
between the hope of the good and that of the bad, and conse- 
quently between the condition of the one and the other ; for the 
one has God to protect and defend him, whilst the other puts his 
trust in the staff of Egypt, which, if he venture to lean on, will 
break and run into his hand ; because the very sm man commits, 
in placing his confidence there, is enough to make God let him 
know, by his own fall, how foolishly he has deceived himself: as 
he has declared by the prophet Jeremy, who, foretelling the de- 
struction of the kingdom of Moab, and the occasion of it, uses 
these words : " Because you have put your trust in fortifications 
and in your riches, you yourself shall be taken ; and Chamos," 
which is the god in which you have trusted, " shall be carried 
into captivity, with his priests, and with his princes;" Jerem. 
xliv. 7. Consider now, what a kind of succor this must be, 
since the very seeking and trusting in it is certain ruin and de- 
struction. 

This shall suffice to show how great a privilege this of hope 



144 THE sinner's guide. 

is ; and though it may seem to be the same with the particular 
providence we have treated of already, which God extends to- 
wards those that serve and love him, there is yet as much differ- 
ence between them as is between the effect and its cause. For 
though there are several causes and beginnings of this hope, as 
the goodness and truth of God, the merits of our Saviour, and the 
rest ; however, his paternal providence, from which this confidence 
proceeds, is one of the chief, because the knowledge that God has 
such particular care over him is the cause of this confidence in man. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Of the seventh Privilege of Virtue, viz. the true Liberty which 
the Virtuous enjoy, and of the miserable and unaccountable 
Slavery the Wicked live in, 

1. From all the above-mentioned privileges, but particularly 
from the second and fourth, which are the grace of the Holy 
Ghost and the divine consolation, there arises another extraordi- 
nary one, which virtuous men enjoy, and is the true liberty of the 
soul ; it is what the Son of God brought into the world with him; 
and it is on this account that he is called the Redeemer of man- 
kind, for having delivered it out of that real and miserable bondage 
it had so long lived under, and having set it in perfect liberty. 
This is one of the greatest favors our Saviour has bestowed on us, 
one of the most remarkable advantages of the gospel, and one of 
the chief effects of the Holy Ghost. For, as the apostle says, 
wheresoever the spirit of the Lord resides, there liberty is to be 
found ; 1 Cor. iii. 17. It is, in fine, one of the noblest rewards 
God promises those who serve him in this life. And it was this 
our Saviour himself promises to some persons who had a mind to 
begin to enter into his service, when he said to them, " If you 
continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed. And you 
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free ;" that is 
to say, shall give you a true Hberty. To which they answered : 
" We are the seed of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to 
any man; how sayest thou, You shall be iree-l Jesus answered 
them. Amen, amen, I say unto you, that whosoever committeth sin 
is the servant of sin. Now the servant abideth not in the house 
for ever : but the son abideth for ever. If, therefore, the son shall 
make you free, you shall be free indeed." John viii. 31, 32, 33, 
34, 35, 36. 

2. Our Saviour by these words gives us plainly to understand, 
that there are two sorts of liberty ; the one false, which, though 



f. *• 

THE sinner's guide. 145 

it looks like liberty, is not so ; the other true, which is what it 
appears to be. As for the false one, it belongs to those persons 
who, though their bodies are free, have put their souls under the 
arbitrary government of every passion ; like Alexander the Great, 
who, after having made himself master of the whole world, was 
a slave to his own vices. But the true liberty is enjoyed by them 
alone, whose souls are free from the yoke of such tyrants, though 
their bodies may sometimes perhaps be prisoners, and sometimes at 
large, as was St. Paul's, who, notwithstanding his imprisonment, 
soared up to heaven in spirit, and by his preaching and doctrine 
set the whole world free. 

The reason why we with so much freedom call this liberty, and 
not the other, is, because, since of those two principal parts which 
compose a man, to wit, the body and soul, the soul is beyond all 
comparison the most noble, and, as it were, man's all; whereas 
the body is nothing but the matter and subject, or the case the 
soul is shut up in ; it necessarily follows, that he who has the best 
part of him at liberty, may be said to be truly free, whilst he 
whose better part is under confinement, enjoys but a false liberty, 
though he has the free disposal of his body, and may carry it 
where he pleases. 

§ I. Of the Slavery of the Wicked. — 3. Should you ask me. 
Whose slave is he, who is under such confinement ? I answer, 
he is a slave to the most hideous tyrant we can possibly represent 
to ourselves ; I mean, to sin. For hell's torments being the 
most abominable thing, sin must of necessity be yet more abom- 
inable, inasmuch as these torments are but the effect of it. 
It is to this the wicked pay their slavish homage, as appears 
plainly from the words of our Saviour so lately cited : "Whoso- 
ever is guilty of sin is a slave to sin ;" John viii. 34. And can 
a man possibly be oppressed with a more deplorable slavery than 
this is? 

Nor is he a slave to sin only, but, what is still worse, to those 
who incite him to it, that is, to the world, the devil, and his own 
flesh, depraved by sin, and to every disorderly appetite the flesh 
is the occasion of ; for he who is a slave to the son must be a slave 
to his parents. Now there is none of us but knows, that these 
three are the parents of sin, and on this account they are styled 
"the enemies of the soul," because they are so prejudicial to it, as 
to take it prisoner, and to put it under the power of such a cruel 
tyrant as sin is. -' 

4. But though these three agree in this point, yet there is some 
kind of a difference in their manner of proceeding ; for the two 
first make use of the third, which is the flesh, like another Eve, 
for the deceiving of Adam, or like a spur to drive him on to all 
manner of miscmef. For this reason the apostle calls it sin, as 
it were by excellence, giving: the name of the effect to the cause, 
19 ^ ^ N 



: 146 . THE sinner's guide. 

because there is no manner of sin whatever, which it does not 
tempt us to. The divines, on the same account, term it fomes 
■ feccati, that is, ^Ae hait and the nourishment of sin, because it 
serves, instead of wool and oil, to keep in and increase the fire 
of sin. But the name we generally call it by is sensuality, flesh 
or concupiscence, which, to speak more plainly, is nothing else, 
but our sensual appetite, the cause of all our passions, as it is 
spoiled and corrupted by sin, it being the incentive and provoca- 
tive, nay, and the very source of all manner of vices. This it is, 
particularly, that makes our other two enemies employ our sensual 
appetite as their instrument for the carrying on of the war against 
us. It was this that gave St. Basil occasion to say, " that our 
own desires are the chief arms with which the devil fights against 
us : because the immoderate affection we have for whatever we 
desire, makes us endeavor to possess it right or wrong, and break 
through all that lies in our way, though forbid by the law of God ; 
and from hence all sins take their rise and origin;" St. Bas. Hom. 
. 23. de non adher. reb. saicularibus. 

5. This appetite is one of the greatest tyrants the wicked are 
subject to, and by which, the apostle says, they are made slaves ; 
and, though he calls them slaves, he does not mean that they have 
lost that free-will with which they were created; because this 
never was nor ever will be lost, as to its essence, though man 
commit ever so many sins ; but that sin, on the other side, has so 
weakened this free-will, and on the other lent such forces to the 
appetite, that the stronger, generally speaking, prevails over the 
w^eaker. 

Besides, what greater subject of grief can we have than to see 
man, whose soul is created according to God's own image, who is 
enhghtened from heaven, and has an understanding so subtile as to 
fly above all created beings, and to contemplate God himself ; it is, 
I say, a deplorable thing to consider that this soul should take no 
notice of all these noble qualities, but let herself be governed by 
the blind impulse of her beastly appetite, which has been corrupted 
by sin, and hurried on by the devil? What must a man expect 
from such a government, and from such directions, but dangers, 
calamities, and all kinds of unparalleled misfortunes ? 

6. I will give you a clear prospect of the deformity of this sla- 
very, by an example which comes home to our present business. 
Represent to yourself a man married to a woman that is as noble, 
as beautiful and as prudent as possibly woman can be ; and that 
this fortunate man should, at the same time, have a servant, a most 
deformed creature, and a mere sorceress, who, envying her mas- 
ter's happiness, should give him a potion, so to pervert all his 
senses, that, despising his wife, and shutting her up in some cor- 
ner of the house, he should give himself over to this lewd servant 
of his, make her the companion of his bed, and of all his pleas- 



THE sinner's guide. 147 

ures ; should consult her on the management of his affairs and 
family, and follow her advice in all things ; nay, to please her, 
should, at her command, squander away his whole estate in enter- 
tainments, feasting, revelling and such kind of delights; and 
should, besides all this, come to such a pitch of madness as to 
oblige his wife to wait on this wicked woman, and to obey all 
her commands. Can any one persuade himself a man should ever 
be guilty of such folly? Who would not be astonished at such mad- 
ness? What indignation would he be in against this wicked wo- 
man, what pity would he take on this poor injured lady, and how 
would he cry out against this blind and senseless husband ? We 
should look on this action as base and infamous, and yet it 
is nothing in comparison of what we are now treating of; for you 
are to understand that we ourselves have these two different women, 
to wit, the spirit and the flesh, within our own souls, which 
the divines, in other terms, call the superior and the inferior part ; 
the superior part of our soul is that in which reside the will and 
reason, which is that natural light God bestowed on us at our 
creation. This reason is so beautiful and noble that it makes man 
like God, capable of enjoying him, and unites him by a brotherly 
love to the very angels. It is the noble woman to whom God 
has married man, that they may live together, and that he may 
follow its counsel and actions in all things ; that is to say, that he 
may let himself be guided by that celestial light, which is reason. 
But as for the inferior part of the soul, it is taken up by the sen- 
sual appetite, which we have already spoken of, and which has 
been given us for no other end but the desiring of things neces- 
sary for the support of our lives, and for the preservation of man- 
kind. But this is to be done according to the rule which reason 
prescribes, as a good steward would do, who makes no provision 
at all but what his master bids him. This appetite, therefore, is 
the slave we have all this while been treating ; nor is it lit to be a 
guide, because it wants the light of reason, and on that account 
must itself be directed by another. But man, on the contrary, 
has been so unhappy as to place such an immoderate affection on, 
and to give himself over entirely to, the satisfying of this wicked 
woman's lusts, that he has taken no notice of the suggestions of 
reason, by which he should have guided himself, but has in all 
things followed the directions of his appetite, and made it his 
whole business to satisfy every irregular desire. For we see 
there are some men so sensual, so unruly, and so abandoned to 
the desires of their own hearts, that there is scarce any thing they 
propose but immediately they, like beasts, pursue it, without any 
respect either to the laws of justice or of reason. And what is 
this but giving themselves up to the flesh, which is the deformed, 
loathsome slave, and following all those sensual pleasures she has 
an inclination to, and despising the advice of that noble and lawful 
wife, which is our reason ? 



148 THE sinner's guide. 

7. But, what is still more intolerable, they are not satisfied 
with using this lady so basely, but will force her to serve this 
wretched slave, and to make it her whole business, day and night, 
to think of, and to procure whatever may serve for the satisfying 
of her base desires. For when a man employs all his \sdt and 
senses about nothing in the w^orld but inventing new fashions in 
his dress, in his buildings, and in his table and diet, for the pleas- 
ing of his palate, in the furniture of his house, and in continually 
thinking of new means and devices for raising up money to com- 
pass these things ; what does he else but take the soul off from 
those spiritual exercises which are more suitable to the excellence 
of her nature, and make her a mere drudge to that creature who 
ought to have done the same offices for her ? When a man that 
is passionately in love with a woman, uses all the wit he has in 
writing love-letters, and in composing songs and poems, and such 
other practices as are usual in those cases ; what does he in all 
this but make the mistress wait on the maid, by employing this 
divine light in contriving means to satisfy the impure desires of 
the flesh ? When king David used so many slights to cover the 
sin he had committed in secret with Bathsheba ; sending for her 
husband out of the camp, inviting him to supper, making him 
drunk, and afterw^ards giving him letters to the camp, with pri- 
vate orders to Joab to put him in the very heat of the engage- 
ment, that so the innocent man might be taken out of the way 
(2 Kings xi.) ; who was contriver of this chain of wickedness but 
reason and the understanding? And who was it that tempted 
them to it but the wicked flesh, to cloak her fault, and to enjoy 
her delights with more security ? Seneca, though a heathen and 
a philosopher too, blushed at these things ; and, therefore, used 
to say, " It is beneath me, who have been born to something that 
is great, to be a slave to my own flesh ;" Sen. Epist. 65. If we 
should be astonished at the stupidity of that man so bewitched, 
how much more reason have we to be concerned at this disorder, 
which is the occasion of our being deprived of much greater 
benefits, and of our falling into more deplorable misfortunes ? 

8. Now, though this be so frequent and so monstrous a disor- 
der, we take little notice of it, and no one is surprised at it, be- 
cause the world is so disorderly. " For," as St. Bernard says, 
" we are not sensible of the stench of our crimes, because the 
number of them is so great ;" Bern. Ep. ad Fratres de Monte Dei. 
For, as no one is affronted to be called a Moor in those countries 
where every one is as black as himself; and as no one thinks it a 
disgrace to be drunk, notwithstanding the filthiness of the sin, 
where drunkenness is in fashion ; so, this disorder being general, 
there is scarce any one that looks on it as he ought to do. From 
what has been said, we may see how unhappy a slavery this is ; 
and not only that, but what dreadful torments man must expect 



THE sinner's guide. 149 

in punishment of his sins, which have delivered up so noble a crea- 
ture into the hands of so cruel a tyrant. The author of Ecclesias- 
ticus looked on it as such, when he prayed to God " that he would 
deliver him from the inordinate desires of sensuality, and from the 
concupiscence of the flesh ; and that he would not give him over 
to a shameless and unbridled soul" (Eccl. xxiii. 6) ; as if he begged 
not to be delivered up into the hands of some cruel tyrant or exe- 
cutioner, looking on his irregular appetite as such. 

§ II. — 9. If you would now be acquainted with the power of 
this tyrant, you may easily gather it, by observing what effects he 
has wrought in the world in all ages. I will not, to this purpose, 
represent to you the fictions of the poets, or set before you the 
example of their famous Hercules, who, after having killed or 
tamed all the monsters in the world, was himself at last so sub- 
dued by the unchaste love of a woman as to lay down his club 
for a distaff, and to leave his adventures to sit and spin amongst 
a company of maids in compliance to his haughty mistress's com- 
mands. It is a pretty invention of the poets, to show what arbi- 
trary power this passion exercises over us. Nor will I allege the 
authority of the Holy Scripture in proof of this truth ; nor bring 
the example of Solomon, a man of such extraordinary wisdom 
and sanctity at one time, whilst at another he was prostrating 
himself before his idols, and building temples to them, in complai- 
sance to his concubines ; 3 Kings xi. It is an example, indeed, 
that comes very home to our present purpose, but we will only 
take notice of those instances that occur to us daily. Consider, 
therefore, what dangers an adulteress exposes herself to, for the 
satisf)dng of an inordinate appetite. I choose this passion before 
any of the rest, that by this you may discover the force of the 
other. She knows that, should her husband surprise her in the 
crime, she is a dead woman, and that she shall in one moment 
lose her life, her honor, her riches and her soul, nay, and what- 
ever else she is capable of losing, either in this world or in the 
next, which is the greatest loss can be sustained. She knows 
that, besides all this, she shall disgrace her children and her 
whole family, and that she shall herself find subject of eternal 
sorrow ; and yet, such is the force of this passion, or rather such 
is the tyrant, that it makes her break through all these difficulties, 
and swallow down so many bitter draughts so easily, for the execu- 
ting all it commands her. Was there ever any master so cruel as 
to expose even his slave to so much danger, for the performance of 
his orders ? Can you think of any slavery more hard and miserable 
than this? 

10. Tliis is the state the wicked generally five in, according to 
the royal prophet's remark, when he says, " They are seated in 
darkness and in the shadow of death ; they suffer hunger, and are 
bound down with chains of iron ;" Ps. cvi. 10. What can the 

N2 



150 THE sinner's guide. 

prophet means by this darkness, but the dark blindness the wicked 
live in, who neither know themselves nor God as they ought to do, 
nor understand what it is they live for, or what is the end of their 
creation. They are unacquainted with the vanity of what they 
love, and are not sensible of the slavery with which they are op- 
pressed. And what are the chains that bind them down but the 
force of those irregular affections, by which their hearts are so close 
linked to all things they have such an unlawful love for ? And what 
can this hunger signify but the insatiable desire they have of many 
things which there is no possibility of obtaining ? Is there any 
slavery so troublesome as this ? 

11. Let us take another example yet of this same passion. 
Cast your eyes on David's eldest son Ammon, who, as soon as ever 
he beheld his sister Thamar w4th a wanton eye, was so blinded, so 
fettered, and so tormented with this hunger, that he could neither 
eat, drink nor take any rest; and this passion cast him into 
such a dangerous sickness, that he had like to have lost his life. 
Judge now, how strong those chains of love and fear, with which 
his heart was tied down, must needs have been, since they made 
so great an impression on all the parts of his body, as to throw 
him into so violent a distemper ; and that you may not imagine 
him to be cured by the enjoyment of his desire, consider that he 
had no sooner satisfied his wish, but his distemper grew more 
violent, "so that," as the Scripture says, "he hated his sister 
much worse than he had ever loved her before ;" 2 Kings xiii. 15. 
Thus the accomplishing of his wicked desire could not free him 
from his passion, but only turned one into another much worse. 
Now what tyrant in the world has so many ways of treating his 
slaves as sin has ? 

12. Such is the condition of all those, who are under the tyran- 
nical government of this vice ; for we can scarcely say they are 
their own masters, since they neither can eat nor drink but when 
it pleases ; they discourse and think of nothing else ; it is the 
subject of their dreams, whilst, at the same time, neither the fear 
of God, nor the interest of their own souls, nor heaven, hell, 
death or judgment, nay, very often, neither life itself, nor their 
honor, which they have such a tender concern for, are able to turn 
them out of the road, or to break the chain. What shall I say of 
the jealousies, suspicions, fears and sudden passions these un- 
happy wretches are perpetually racked with ? What dangers do 
they expose themselves to ! And what continual hazards do they 
run of losing both their lives and souls, for the enjoying of 
their filthy pleasures ! Can any tyrant exercise so much cruelty 
on the bodies of his slaves, as this vice does on the very hearts of 
those that give themselves over to it? For no slave is so much 
taken up with his master's business, but he has some time, either in 
day or night, to take a little ease or rest. But such is the nature 



THE sinner's guide. 151 

of this ^dce, and others like it, that, as soon as ever they take pos- 
session of a heart, they grow so sovereign and arbitrary, that man 
has scarce either power, means, time or wit to do any thing else. 
So that Ecclesiasticus had a great deal of reason to say, " That 
wine and women make even wise men fools;" Eccl. xix. 2. Be- 
cause, let a man be ever so wise, he is as much besotted with this 
vice as he is with wine, and is as little his own master, so that he 
can do nothing that becomes a rational creature. The prince of 
poets, to convince us of this truth, gives us a character of the 
famous queen Dido, who, at the very moment that she fell in love 
with Mneas, laid aside all her public employments, and went no 
further in the building of her city ; the walls and fortifications 
were carried up no higher ; there was no training up youth in 
military discipline, no care about securing the haven, or furnish- 
ing the arsenal for the defence of their country ; Yirg. Mn. Lib. 
4. And the reason the poet gives for it is because this tyrant had 
seized on all the thoughts of this woman, so as to leave her 
unfit for any thing else but the indulging of this passion, a pas- 
sion so uncontrollable, and so arbitrary, that when it has once 
possession of a heart, it takes the power of doing any thing else 
away from it. O cruel and barbarous vice! the very disturber 
and destroyer of whole states and kingdoms, the ruin of all that 
is good and honorable, the plague of virtue, the cloud that hangs 
over and darkens the wits of ingenious men, the enchantress of 
the soul, that makes fools of wise men, and makes sots and 
dotards of old men, that inflames and excites the boiling passions 
of youth, and that, in fine, is the common bane and destruction of 
mankind ! 

13. Nor is it this vice alone that is so tyrannical ; all the rest 
are, in their different ways, as cruel and as arbitrary. Consider 
but the proud and ambitious man, who aims at nothing but 
respect, and walks blindly and darkly in the smoke of honors. 
See how this passion tyrannizes over him ; with what greediness 
he catches at glory, what pains he takes to acquire it, directing 
every action of his life to this end : his servants, his retinue, his 
dress, his table, his chamber, his furniture, his attendants, his 
posture, his gait, his mien, his discourse, his looks, in fine, all he 
does, tends this way, because it is done so as it may gain him 
most esteem, and procure him the empty puff and blast of honor ; 
so that, if you look narrowly into him, you will find, that what he 
does or says is a bait for popular applause and commendation. 
If we wonder at the folly of Domitian the emperor, for hunting 
after flies with a bodkin in his hand, when he had nothing else 
to do, how much more should we admire the folly of the wretched 
ambitious man, who not only spends some spare time, but runs 
out his whole hfe in hunting after the smoke of worldly vanity ? 
It is this makes the unhappy man do nothing he has a mind to 



152 THE sinner's guide. 

do : he neither dresses himself according to his own fancy, nor goes 
where he himself would go ; since he very often neglects even 
going to church, and does not care to converse with virtuous per- 
sons, for fear the world, whose slave he is, should reflect upon 
him. And what is yet worse, this vice makes him live above what 
he has, and by that means reduces him to a thousand necessities, 
which ruin his soul, and are very often the eternal destruction of 
his posterity, who have no other inheritance left them by him, but 
his debts to discharge, and his follies to imitate. Can such per- 
sons as these deserve any easier punishment than that, they say, a 
certain king used to inflict on an ambitious man, which was, to 
stifle him with smoke, saying, it was no more than justice that he 
should be condemned to die by smoke, for having spent all his life 
in seeking after smoke and wind. What misery can be greater 
than this ? 

14. What shall I say of the greedy covetous man, who is not 
only a slave to, but even an idolater of, his money? While he 
serves, adores and obeys in every thing it commands him; for 
this he fasts so rigorously, as scarce to allow himself a morsel of 
bread ; this treasure, in fine, he loves more than he loves God, 
whom he makes no scruple to oflfend for the least profit. This is 
his comfort, his glory, his hope, the continual subject of all his 
thoughts, and the object of his love ; with it he goes to sleep, 
with it he rises, employs his whole life about it, and is continu- 
ally finding out new ways to improve it, neglecting at the same 
time and forgetting himself and every thing else. Can we call 
such a man the master of his money, to dispose of it as he has 
a mind ; or ought we not rather to say, that, instead of his money 
being a slave to him, he becomes a slave to his money, consider- 
ing himself, as it were, made for his money, and not his money 
for him ? Neglecting his belly and his very soul, to give himself 
entirely to it ? 

15. Can there be a harder slavery than this ? For if we call 
that man a prisoner who is clapped up into a dungeon, or loaded 
with chains and irons, what better name can we give him who 
has his soul oppressed and charged with the disorderly affection 
of what he loves ? For when a man is once come to this degree, 
he has not any one power of his soul that enjoys a perfect hberty ; 
he is not his own master, but his slave, whom he has so passionate 
a love for. For wheresoever his love is, there his heart will be, 
though still he does not lose his free-will. Nor does it signify 
any thing what chains you are tied down with, if the nobler part 
of you is made a prisoner ; nor does your consenting to your 
imprisonment make your confinement less, nay, on the contrary, 
if it be a true prison, the more voluntary it is, the more danger- 
ous it will be, as we see in poison, which, if pure, is no less 
hurtful, because it is sweet : certainly there can be no straiter 



THE sinner's guide, 153 

prison than that you are thus confined to, which makes you turn 
your eyes away from God, truth, honesty, and the laws of justice, 
and lords it over you at such a rate, that, as a drunken man is 
not his own master, but a slave to his liquor, so he that is op- 
pressed with this slavery is no longer in his own power, but at 
the command of his passion, though his free-will is yet remaining. 
Now, if imprisonment be a torment, what greater torment can 
there be, than that which one of these miserable men endures, 
by continually desiring w^hat he knows he can never obtain, and 
yet he cannot forbear or curb his desires, so that he is reduced 
to such circumstances, that he knows not which way to turn 
himself. And, being in this perplexity and trouble, he is forced 
to make use of the words of a certain poet to an ill-natured 
lewd woman : " I love you and I hate you at the same time ; and 
if you ask me the reason of it, it is because I can neither live 
with you nor without you." But if at any time he endeavors to 
break these chains, and to overcome his passions, he immediately 
finds such resistance, that he very often despairs of obtaining the 
victory, and returns to his chains and slavery again. Do not you 
think, after all this, that we may very well be allowed to call this 
state a torment and captivity ? 

16. If these prisoners had but one chain to hold them, their 
misery would be much less, for there were some hope of break- 
ing a single bond, or overcoming one enemy alone. But how 
miserable must we imagine their condition to be, when we con- 
sider what a great number of passions, like so many fetters, keep 
down these unhappy creatures? For man's life lying open to 
so many necessities, and every necessity exciting some new de- 
sire, and adding, as it were, another link to the chain, it follows, 
that he who has a great many passions must have but very little 
command of his own heart; but still this is more in some 
persons than in others ; for some men's apprehension is naturally 
so tenacious that they can scarce ever put from them any thing that 
has once taken possession of their imagination ; others are of a 
melancholy temper, which makes them strong and violent in their 
desires; and others are mean-spirited, who look on all tilings, 
though ever so inconsiderable, as great and worthy to be coveted, 
for every little thing seems great to a poor soul; others are 
naturally violent in whatever they desire, as generally women 
are; "who," as a philosopher observes, "passionately love or 
hate, because there is no medium in their aflfections." All these 
passions exercise continual cruelties on those that are subject to 
them : and now, if the misery of being bound with but one chain, 
and of serving only one master, be so great, how miserable must 
that man's condition be, who is held by so many chains, and has 
such a great number of masters to command him as the wicked 
20 



154 THE sinner's guide. 

man has I for every passion and vice he is subject to, is a distinct 
master, and requires his obedience and submission. 

Can there be any greater misery than this ? For if the dignity 
of man, as man, depends on two things, viz. reason and free- 
will, what can be more opposite, either to the one or the other, 
than passion is, which, at the same time blinds the reason and 
drags away the free-will along with it ? By which you may 
perceive what prejudice we are apt to receive from the least 
irregular affection, since it turns a man out of the throne of his 
majesty, obscures his reason, and perverts his free-will, without 
which two, man is no longer a reasonable creature, but a mere 
brute. See, here, the unhappy slavery the wicked are reduced to, 
as men, that will neither take notice of the laws or inspirations of 
God, nor the dictates of their ow^n reason, but are hurried away by 
the impulse of their own passions and appetites. 

§ III. Of the Liberty virtuous Men enjoy. — 17. This is the 
cruel slavery the Son of God came down from heaven to deliver 
us from; and it is this liberty and victory Isaias so highly com- 
mends, when he says, " Those whom thou hast redeemed shall 
rejoice in thee, O Lord, as the husbandmen do in time of harvest, 
and as conquerors do after they have taken a prey, and are 
dividing the spoils. For thou hast taken away the yoke which 
oppressed them, and the rod which struck them, and delivered 
them from the sceptre of this tyrant, who has laid very heavy 
taxes upon them." Isa. ix. 3, 4. All these names of yoke, of rod, 
and sceptre, agree very w^ell with the tyrannical power of our 
passions and appetites, because the devil, who is the prince of 
this world, makes use of them as very proper instruments to work 
us into an allegiance to his tyranny, and into a subjection to sin. 
From this tyranny and subjection the Son of God has delivered 
us by the superabundance of his grace, which the sacrifice he 
made of himself on the cross has purchased for us. For which 
reason the apostle says, "that our old man has been crucified 
w'ith him" (Rom. vi. 6) ; meaning here, by " the old man," our 
sensual appetite, which became disorderly by the sin of our first 
parents. And the reason why our old man has been crucified with 
him is, because he, by the merit of his passion, has obtained grace 
for us, whereby we may subdue this tyrant, and make him suffer 
the same punishment he has made us to suffer, thus crucifying 
him who before crucified us, and bringing him into slavery, 
under whose slavery we have been so long groaning. Thus, 
what the prophet Isaias foretold in another place, has come to 
pass: "They shall take those who took them before, and shall 
bring those that have oppressed them under their subjection;" 
Isa. xiv. 2. For our sensual appetite, before the reign of grace, 
tyrannized over our understanding, and made it a slave to all its' 
unlawful desires ; but as soon as ever grace came in to its succor, 



THE sinner's guide. 155 

it grew so strong as to prevail against this tyrant, and make it sub- 
mit to what reason prescribed. 

18. This subduing of the appetite to reason has been, in a 
particular manner, represented to us, by the death of Adoni- 
bezech, king of Jerusalem, who was put to death by the chil- 
dren of Israel, after they had first cut off his fingers and toes. 
This unhappy prince, seeing himself in this condition, and calling 
to mind the cruelties he had before exercised on others, was 
heard to say, "Threescore and ten kings, whose fingers and 
toes I have cut off, have picked up the scraps that have fallen 
under my table ; and now I see that God deals with me just as I 
have dealt with them;" Jud. i. 7. After which the Scripture 
adds, that he was carried in this condition to Jerusalem, and 
died there. This cruel tyrant is the figure of this world, which, 
before the Son of God came down from heaven, cut off the hands 
and feet of almost all men in general, by this means maiming and 
putting them out of the capacity of serving God, cutting off their 
hands to hinder them from doing any good, and their feet to pre- 
vent them from so much as desiring it ; and, besides all this, re- 
ducing them to the necessity of living on the poor scraps that fell 
under his table, that is, the sensual pleasures of the world, 
wherewith this wicked prince maintains his servants. There is 
much reason for calling them scraps, and not pieces of bread, be- 
cause this tyrant is so niggardly in distributing these crumbs and 
fragments, that he never gives enough to satisfy their appetite. 
But after our Saviour came into the world, he made this tyrant 
undergo the same torments he had put others to before, cutting 
off his hands and feet, that is, defeating all his forces. The 
Scripture expressly declares, that Adonibezech died in Jerusalem, 
because this was the place where our Saviour, by death, destroyed 
the prince of this w^orld, and where, dying on the cross, he cru- 
cified this tyrant, binding him hand and foot, and taking all his 
power from him. And, therefore, immediately after his most 
sacred passion, men began to triumph and insult over this tyrant, 
and so to lord it over the world, the devil and the flesh, with 
all its concupiscences, that neither all the tortures they could be 
threatened with on the one side, nor all the pleasures that could 
be proposed to them on the other, were able to make them com- 
mit a mortal sin. 

§ IV. Of the Causes whence this Liberty proceeds. — 19. You 
will ask, perhaps, whence this great victory and liberty proceeds ; 
to which I answer, that next to God, it proceeds immediately, as 
I have said already, from his grace, which, by the means of those 
virtues it inspires, so moderates the heat of our passions, as not 
to let them get the better of reason. So that as sorcerers can, by 
certain spells, enchant snakes, that they should do no hurt, with- 
out killing them or taking away their venom, so the grace of God 



156 THE sinner's guide. 

charms all the venomous serpents of our passions ; and though it 
still leaves them their natural being in perfect vigor, yet they 
can do us no hurt with their poison, because they are not capable, 
as they were before, to infect our lives. This was meant by 
the prophet Isaias, when he said, " The sucking child shall sport 
himself over the hole of an asp, and he that is weaned shall put 
his hand into the basilisk's den. They shall not hurt nor kill any 
body in all my holy mountain, because the earth shall be as full 
of knowledge of the Lord as the sea is of the waters that cover 
it." Isa. xi. 8, 9. It is plain the prophet does not speak here of 
visible but of invisible serpents, which are nothing but our own 
passions and bad inclinations, which, when once they break out, 
are enough to corrupt the whole world ; nor does he speak of cor- 
poral children, but of the spiritual ; and those he calls " sucking 
children" are such as are but just beginning to serve God, and, 
therefore, must be fed with milk ; but those that are weaned are 
such as have made a greater progress, and can go alone, and eat 
bread and stronger meats. The prophet, therefore, speaking of 
both of them, says of the former, that they shall be glad to see, 
notwithstanding they are perpetually in the very midst of these 
invisible serpents, that the grace of God will secure them from 
receiving any considerable hurt, by not permitting them to con- 
sent in any manner to sin. As for the latter, those I mean, that 
are already weaned, and have advanced further in the way of 
God, he says they shall put their hands into the very dens of 
basilisks, which is as much as to say, that God will preserve them 
even in their greatest dangers ; so that we see these words of the 
psalmist verified in them : " You shall walk over the asp and the 
basilisk, and you shall tread upon the Hon and the dragon ;" Ps. 
xc. 13. These are they who shall receive no harm at all, though 
they put their hands into a basilisk's den, because these serpents 
shall be so charmed by the abundance of God's grace, spreading 
itself over the whole face of the earth, that they should not do any 
hurt to the children of God. 

20. St. Paul explains this much more clearly, and without any 
kind of metaphor; for after having discoursed very fully of the 
tyranny our irregular affections and our flesh exercise over us, he 
cries out at last, "Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me 
from the body of this death?" Rom. vii. 24. But he himself 
immediately answers his own question briefly, and says, "The 
grace of God which is given us by Jesus Christ our Lord ;" ver. 
§5. What he means here, by " the body of death," is not this 
body of ours, that is subject to a natural death, which we all of 
us look for, but what he himself, in another place, calls " the body 
of sin" (Rom. vi. 6), that is, our depraved appetite, from which 
proceed all inordinate affections, which are continually enticing 
to sin, just as the members do from the bodyj and this is the 



THE sinner's guide. 157 

body the apostle says, the grace that is given us through Jesus 
Christ dehvers us from, as from a cruel tyrant. 

21. The second, and that a main cause of this liberty, is the 
greatness of that joy, and of those spiritual consolations, which 
the virtuous enjoy, as we have approved already. By these all 
their desires are so fully satisfied, that they easily overcome and 
dismiss all their irregular appetites ; and having found out this 
source of all that is good and pleasant, they covet no other hap- 
piness, as our Saviour himself declared to the Samaritan woman, 
when he told her, " Whosoever shall drink of the water which I 
shall give him," which is the grace of God, " shall never thirst 
again ;" John iv. 13. St. Gregory assures us of the same thing, 
in one of his Homilies, in these words : " He who is once 
thoroughly acquainted with the sweetness of a heavenly Hfe, 
immediately bids adieu to all those things he had a sensual love 
for before. He forsakes all he is in possession of, he distributes 
liberally all his treasures, his heart is inflamed with the desire of 
heaven, there is nothing on earth can please him, and whatever 
he before thought beautiful and lovely, he now accounts deformed 
and hideous, because this precious jewel is the only thing that 
shines and glitters to the eyes of his soul." For w^hen the vessel 
of our heart is full of this liquor, and the thirst of our soul is 
quenched with the same, it has no occasion to run after the fleet- 
ing and vain pleasures of this life, but lives free from the slavery 
of all those affections, which base earthly pleasures excited in her ; 
because where there is no love, there can be no slavery : and 
thus the heart that has found him, who is the Lord of all things, 
finds itself to be, in some measure. Lord of all things, there 
being no other solid good, which it does not meet with in this one 
good. 

22. Add to these two divine favors, which assist us so much 
in the regaining of our liberty, the pains virtuous men take to 
subdue the flesh to the spirit, and to make the passions submit to 
reason. By this means they gradually mortify their passions, ob- 
tain a habit of virtue, and lay aside that hate and violence which 
used to disturb them before. " For if," as St. Chrysostom says, 
" the wildest beasts that are, by living amongst men, come, in 
time, to lose their natural fierceness, and to grow tame and gentle, 
by observing the same qualities in men ;" which gave a poet occa- 
sion to say, that time and custom bring lions under obedience ; 
what wonder is it, that our passions, if we but accustom them to 
submit to reason, should, by degrees, become tame and rational, 
that is, should, in some manner, partake of the quality of the spirit 
and of reason, and love nothing more than to do as they do ? Now, 
if this may be done only by use and custom, how much sooner and 
more efficaciously must it of necessity be effected, when use and 
custom are backed by grace? 



158 . THE sinner's guide. 

23. Hence it is, that those who serve God feel very often a 
more sensible pleasure and satisfaction, if I may so term it, in 
their recollection, silence, reading, prayers, meditations, and in 
such other exercises, than they could find in hunting, gaming 
and conversation, or in any other worldly recreations and diver- 
sion, which they look on as mere torments, insomuch that the 
flesh itself begins now to hate what it loved before, and to be 
pleased with what it formerly loathed. All this is so true, " that 
the inferior part of our souls," as St. Bona venture observes, in 
the preface of his Incentive to the Love of God, " is very often 
so delighted in prayer, and in conversing with God, that it is no 
small torment to it, when there is any, though ever so just a cause, 
that it obhges it to break off these exercises." And this is what 
the royal prophet meant, when he said, " I will praise the Lord, 
because he has given me understanding, and also because my 
reins have reproved me" (Ps. xv. 7) ; or, as another translation 
has it, " have instructed me all the night long." This is, without 
doubt, a particular favor of the Almighty's grace, because the ex- 
positors of the Holy Scriptures understand in this place, by the 
reins, all the inward affections and motions of man; which, as 
w^e have said already, are the general incentives to sin. But yet, 
by virtue of this grace, they are very often so far from stirring us 
up to sin, as they used to do, or from fighting for the devil, whose 
service they were engaged in before, that, on the contrary, they 
forward us in virtue, and, aspiring to Jesus Christ, turn their arms 
against the common enemy : though this may be seen in all the 
exercises of a spiritual life, it appears much more plainly in our 
sorrow and contrition for our sins, wherein the inferior part of the 
soul has its share, afflicting itself and shedding tears for them. 
This is the reason of David's saying, " that his reins reproved him 
in the night-time;" because then, the day being ended, the just 
are used to examine their consciences, and to bewail whatever they 
have offended in ; and then it was that he himself, as he says in 
another place, swept his spirit by this exercise ; Ps. Ixxxi. 7. It 
was in the night, I say, that his reins reproved him, because the 
sorrow which he felt in this part of his soul, for having offended 
God, was a continual correction, to keep him from falKng into 
those sins again, which had troubled him so much. On which 
account he, with a great deal of justice, thanks God, because not 
only the superior part of his soul, which is the seat of reason, in- 
vited him to good, but even the inferior part too, which is used, 
for the most part, to encourage us to evil: though all this be 
really true, and one of the greatest benefits we receive from Christ's 
redemption, who redeemed us most fully and gave us perfect 
liberty, yet we ought not to take occasion from hence to be negli- 
gent, nor trust too much to our flesh, be it ever so mortified, during 
the course of this mortal life. 



THE sinner's guide. 159 

24. These, therefore, are the chief causes of this extraordinary 
liberty. And, amongst several other effects it produces, one is 
the new knowledge we have of God, and the confirming us in 
the faith and religion we profess; and, as God himself openly 
declares to us, by the prophet Ezekiel (ch. xxxiv. 27), saying, " All 
men shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall break the chains 
of their yokes, and shall deliver them from the hands of those 
that tyrannize over them." We have said already that this yoke 
was our sensuality, or our inordinate affection for sin, which 
dwells within our flesh, and which oppresses us and makes us 
subject to sin. The chains of this yoke are all those bad incli- 
nations by which the devil catches hold of us and draws us after 
him ; now these bad inclinations are so much the more efficacious, 
as they have been fortified by a longer habit. St. Augustine, in 
his own confessions, had sufficient experience of this; for he 
says, " I was bound not with another's fetters, but those of my 
own hard will and iron, which the enemy had in his power, and 
of which he made a chain for me, and tied me down with the 
same. For my perverse will has been the cause of my vicious 
desires ; I contracted a vicious habit, which, for want of being re- 
sisted, grew into a necessity ; with all which, as with so many 
links that have gone towards the making of the chain, I have 
been tied down, and reduced to the utmost hardship." Conf. L. 
8. c. 5. When a man finds himself, as this saint did, to have 
been groaning for some time under slavery, and after having made 
several attempts to get out of it, perceives his escape so diflficult, 
yet, when he addresses himself to God, sees all his chains broken, 
his passions mortified, himself at liberty and master of his own ap- 
petites, with the yoke that he pressed so heavily on his shoidders 
lying now under his feet, who but God can he imagine has broken 
his fetters, and eased him of the w^eight that had so long galled his 
neck ? What has he to do but to praise God with the royal pro- 
phet, and to cry out with him, " O Lord, thou hast broken my 
chains ; I will offer up a sacrifice of praise to thee, and will call 
upon thy holy name ;" Ps. cxv. 8. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Of the eighth Privilege of Virtue, viz. the inward Peace and 
Calm the Virtuous enjoy, and of the miserable Restlessness and 
Disturbance the Wicked feel within themselves. 

1. From this privilege just mentioned, which is the liberty of 
the sons of God, flows another, nothing inferior to it, which is 
the inward peace and tranquillity they enjoy. For the better un- 



160 THE sinner's guide. 

derstanding whereof, it is to be observed, there are three sorts of 
peace, one with our neighbor, another with God, and the third 
with ourselves. Peace w4th our neighbors consists in such a 
friendly and civil correspondence with them, as banishes all de- 
sign or desire of doing any man a prejudice. This peace David 
had when he says, " I was peaceable with those that hated peace, 
and when I spoke to them with meekness, they, without any rea- 
son, rose up against me ;" Ps. cxix. 7. St. Paul recommends 
this same peace to us, when he advises us to " use our utmost en- 
deavors, as far as is possible, to live in peace with all men ;" Rom. 
xii. 18. The second peace, which is that with God, consists in the 
friendship and favor of God ; it is to be obtained by the means of 
justification, which reconciles man to God, and makes them both 
love one another without any disturbance or contradiction on 
either side. The apostle, speaking of this peace, says, " Since 
we are already justified by faith through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who has procured us this grace, let us live in peace with God ;" 
Rom. V. 1. The last peace is that which a man has with him- 
self; nor ought any one to wonder at this kind of peace, smce 
w^e know very well, that there are in the very self-same man, 
two men so opposite to one another, as are the outward and the 
inward, the flesh and the spirit, the passions and reason. For 
the flesh and the passions are not only always at variance with the 
spirit, but besides disturb the whole man with their irregular ap- 
petites, and trouble his inward peace, which consists in tranquillity 
of mind. 

§ 1. Of the inward Restlessness and Disquiet of the Wicked. — 
2. Wicked men, and such as hearken to the persuasions of the 
flesh, are never free from such disturbances as these. For being, 
on the one hand, deprived of God's grace, which is the curb to 
keep their passions in awe, and on the other, their desires being 
so active and unruly, that they are scarce able to resist them in 
the least thing imaginable, it necessarily follows, that they must 
be carried away by an infinite number of opposite desires, some 
by that of honor, others of great employments, others of conver- 
sation and friendship, others of great and honorable titles, others 
of riches, others, again, of success in marriage, and others of 
recreations and pleasures. For this appetite is like a devouring 
fire that consumes whatever it catches hold of, or like a ravenous 
beast that is never satisfied, or like the leech that is perpetually 
thirsting after blood ; and which, as Solomon says, " has two 
daughters that are always crying out, More yet, more yet ;" Prov. 
XXX. 15. This leech is nothing but the insatiable desire of the 
heart, and her two children are necessity and concupiscence. The 
first of them seems to be a true thirst, but the last is only a false 
one, though they are both of them equally troublesome, notwith- 
standing our supposing one to be a real, the other but a pretended 



THE sinner's guide. 161 

necessity. This is the reason why no wicked man, whether 
he be rich or poor, can ever enjoy content : for if he be poor, 
when want is continually disturbing his heart, and crying out, 
" More yet, more yet ;" whilst concupiscence never ceases to break 
the rich man's rest with the same noise. How then can man 
enjoy any ease that has two such importunate beggars always 
making a noise at his door, and craving many things he is not 
able to give them? What trouble must a poor mother be in, 
who has ten or a dozen of children around her, continually crying 
for bread, if she has not a morsel to give them ? This is one 
of the greatest miseries the wicked endure : " They perish," says 
the psalmist, " with hunger and thirst, and their souls fail within 
them:" Ps. xxxvi. 5. For self-love, the cause of all these desires, 
having got so much power over them, and they placing all their 
happiness in earthly riches and pleasures, it is impossible they 
should not, with greediness, hunger and thirst after those things 
on which they imagine all their happiness depends. And because 
they cannot always obtain what they long for, being prevented 
by others more covetous and powerful, they disturb themselves 
like a froward child that longs for every thing it sees, and grows 
sullen if denied it. For as the obtaining of our wish is, accord- 
ing to the wise man, "the tree of life" (Ps. xiii. 12) ; so there is 
nothing in the w^orld torments us worse, than to be disappointed of 
what we have a mind for. It is just like being ready to die 
for hunger, and having nothing to eat. But what is w^orst of all, 
the more they are hindered from obtaining their desires, the more 
they increase, and as they find they have less hopes left, they are 
more vexed and troubled ; so they are continually turned about like 
a wheel that is in perpetual motion. 

3. This is the miserable condition our Saviour expresses so 
much to the life, by the parable of the prodigal son (Luke xv.), 
of whom he says, that, leaving his father's house, he travelled 
into a far country, and there squandered away his estate in riot 
and debauchery ; and when he had spent all, there happened to be 
a great famine in those parts, during w^hich he was reduced 
to that extremity as to be obliged to look after swine ; and, what 
is still more, he was put to such straits as to desire to fill 
his belly with what the hogs themselves lived on, and yet 
nobody would give him even that. Could any one lay out 
the whole course of a wicked man's hfe, with all the miseries that 
attend it, in more lively colors than these ? Who can this prodigal 
son be, that leaves his father's house, but the unhappy sinner, 
who separates himself from Almighty God, gives himself over to 
all sorts of vices and abuses all God's favors and mercies ? What 
is this coimtry, where there is so great a famine, but this misera- 
ble world, where worldly men are so insatiable in their desires as 
never to be satisfied with what they have, but are perpetually 
21 02 



162 THE sinner's guide. 

running up and down like ravenous wolves, still seeking after 
more? And what can you imagine is the employment of their 
whole Hves, but feeding of hogs, that is, laboring how to content 
their own swinish appetites? If you are not convinced of this 
truth, observe a very young man, who is w^holly intent on the 
world from morning till night, and you will see that all his busi- 
ness is, beast-like, to find out new ways to please and delight 
some one or more of his senses, as the sight, the taste, the hear- 
ing, or the rest, as if he were one of Epicurus's followers, 
and not a disciple of Jesus Christ, as if he had nothing else to 
look after but a body like a beast, and as if he believed that sen- 
sual pleasures were his only end. Thus his whole entertainment 
is to run from place to place, here to-day, and there to-morrow, 
in pursuit of fresh delights for the indulging of his senses. 
What other end can he have in his gallantry, in his feasting and 
banqueting, in his soft beds, in his music, in_his conversations, in 
his visits, in his walks, but to look after meat for this sort of swine ? 
You may give all this what name you please, call it grandeur or 
good breeding, if you will, but know that, in the language of God 
and of the gospel, it is nothing but feeding of swine ; because, as 
hogs love to be wallowing in the dirt and mire, so the hearts of 
such men love nothing but the filth of carnal pleasures. 

4. But the greatest misery is, to see that the son of such a 
noble father, born to be fed with the bread of angels at God's own 
table, cannot satisfy his hunger with such vile food, so great is the 
scarcity of it ; because there being so many buyers of this commo- 
dity, they hinder one another, and so they all go away unsatisfied. 
My meaning is, that whilst so many are catching at it, there must 
need be much strife, as it is impossible for swine to feed under an 
oak, without grunting and biting one another to get a better share 
of the acorns that fall. 

This is the dreadful hunger holy David describes, where 
he says, "They have wandered up and down in the wilder- 
ness in a dry place, hungering and thirsting, till they were 
just ready to drop down ;" Ps. cvi. 45. What can this ex- 
treme hunger and thirst be, but the inordinate desire of the 
things of this world the wicked are inflamed with? This 
appetite of theirs is such, that the more they give it, the 
greedier it grows, the more it drinks, the drier it is, and the more 
wood they lay on, the more violent it burns. O unhappy 
creatures, what can be the cause of your being parched up w^ith 
such a burning thirst as this, " but your having forsaken the 
fountain of living water, and running to drink out of broken 
cisterns, which can hold none ?" Jer. ii. 13. You have mistaken 
the stream of true happiness, and for this reason you run up and 
down, till you lose yourselves through wild and desert places, 
in search of the muddy pond and lakes of the perishable goods 



THE sinner's guide. 163 

of this world, in hopes they will quench your thirst. This was 
cruel Holofernes's policy, when he besieged Bethulia ; for as soon 
as ever he sat down before the city, he commanded his men to 
cut off all the pipes and channels that conveyed water to the town, 
so that the poor besieged had but a few little springs left, just 
by the walls, where they used to drink now and then by stealth, 
rather wetting their lips than quenching their thirst. Is not this 
your case, you, who are always seeking after pleasures, you, who 
are perpetually in pursuit of honor, and who are such friends to 
every thing that pleases the appetite, for having missed of the 
fountain of living waters ? What else do you but run to the 
little springs of creatures, that come in your way, and rather 
serve to wet your lips and increase your thirst than to quench it ? 
O unfortunate man ! " Why will you go into Egypt to drink 
troubled water ?" Jer. ii. 18. What water can be more troubled 
than sensual pleasure, which is not to be drank without perceiv- 
ing an ungrateful taste and smell ? For what worse smell than 
the stench of sin, and what more unpalatable than the remorse 
of conscience occasioned by it, which, as we are told, even by 
a philosopher, are both the inseparable companions of carnal 
pleasures ? 

o. Besides, this appetite being blind, and unable to distinguish 
between what it can obtain and what it cannot, and the eager- 
ness of desire making that appear very easy which is in itself 
most difficult, those things are often coveted that cannot be ob- 
tained; for there is nothing worth coveting, but what is much 
sought after and defended by many lovers. Now the appetite 
being deprived of what it longs for, being hungry and wanting 
whereon to feed, often stretching out its arms, and yet grasping 
nothing but the air, and using all endeavors without any success, 
therefore, it frets inwardly, wastes and consumes to see itself so far 
from what it desires. For those two chief faculties of our souls, 
the irascible and concupiscible, being so closely united together 
as never to be wanting to one another, it is certain that whatever 
the concupiscible is frustrated of its desire, the irascible comes 
in immediately to reUeve it, raging and exposing itself to all 
accidents and dangers, that it may give the other satisfaction. 
From this confusion of desires proceeds the inward disturbance 
we are now speaking of, which St. James calls a war when he 
says. From whence come wars and differences among you ? Come 
they not hence even of your lusts, that war in your members ? Yc 
lust and have not. Jam. iv. 1, 2. The natural contradiction 
that is between the flesh and spirit, and between the desires 
of each, has given the apostle a great deal of reason to call it 
a war. 

6. There is still another thing of this nature much to be 
lamented, which is, that very often men obtain all that seemed 



164 THE sinner's guide. 

to suffice to put them into the state of satisfaction they aimed at, 
and when they are in such a condition that, if they pleased, they 
nught Hve happy, they then conceit they ought to aspire to some 
other honor, preferment, dignity, or the Uke, which if they fail 
of, they are more perplexed for the miss of that nothing they 
want, than pleased with the enjoyment of all they possess. 
Thus they pass their lives with this thorn perpetually pricking, 
or rather with this scourge continually chastising them, which 
palls all their happiness, and turns their pleasure into smoke 
and vapor. This is what I call nailing up the cannon, as enemies 
do in time of war ; for a little nail driven into the biggest piece 
of artillery is enough to make it unfit for service. The cannon 
is still as big and as sound as it was before, and yet such a little 
thing makes it lose all its force. God deals after the same man- 
ner vnth the wicked. They might see plainly, if they would but 
open their eyes, that joy of heart is a free gift of Almighty God, 
who bestows it on whom he pleases and when he pleases, without 
making any preparation beforehand as we do, and that he can 
take it away again whenever he thinks fit, only by nailing up the 
cannon, that is, by permitting some unhappy turn or change of 
their prosperity and fortune. And then this single misfortune, 
though unknown to any one, is sufficient to make them as uneasy 
and melancholy as if they had nothing in this world to live, on, 
though, at the same time, they may be very rich and happy in all 
appearance. God himself tells us as much, when, speaking by 
the prophet Isaias, against the pride and power of the king of 
Assyria, he says. That he will weaken his greatest force, and put 
fire under his glory, for to hum it up (Isa. x. 6), to show us, that 
God can sink a vessel when it sails with the fairest wind, can 
weaken the greatest strength, and make a man miserable in the 
midst of his prosperity. The same is signified to us again in the 
book of Job (xxvi. 5), where it is said. The giants groan under the 
waters, to let us know that God has his deep places and his 
punishments for the great as well as for the little ones, though 
these seem to lie more open to the misfortunes and injuries of 
the world. But Solomon has expressed the same thing much 
plainer ; when counting up all the notable miseries in the world, 
he reckons this one of the greatest of them : There is another 
evil also, says he, which I have seen under the sun, and which is 
common amongst men : a man to whom God has given wealth, 
riches and honor, so that he wanted nothing for his soul of all that 
he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, hui a 
stranger eateth it; Eccl. vi. 1, 2. What does he mean by these 
words, God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but that he shall 
not enjoy even what is his own, nor take the satisfaction and 
pleasure which his possessions might give him, because God has 
ordained that his happiness shall be disturbed and ruined? And 



THE sinner's guide. 165 

here we are given to understand, that as true wisdom is not to 
be learned by dead letters, but that it is God who teaches it, so 
neither does true content depend on the goods of this world, but 
on God alone. 

7. But to come home to our subject, how unhappy must those 
poor creatures be who have nothing, if even those who enjoy all 
they can wish are so uneasy, because they do not enjoy God ! 
For the wani of every one of these things is a particular hunger 
and thirst, that torments them, and a thorn that is perpetually 
pricking their hearts: what peace, what quiet is it possible for a 
soul to have, when all its thoughts and desires are continually so 
importunate and rebellious ? The prophet says very well of such 
sort of people, " That the heart of the wicked is Hke a tempes- 
tuous sea, which is not to be calmed ;" Isa. Ivii. 20. And, indeed, 
what sea, what waves, or what winds can be more boisterous and 
stormy than the passions and desires of the wicked, which very 
often disturb not only the sea, but all the world? But there 
often start up contrary winds in this sea, which is another most 
violent sort of storm. For the same desires, like opposite winds, 
frequently resist one another, so that what pleases the flesh does 
not please honor, what honor loves, riches do not care for ; repu- 
tation does not covet that which is agreeable to wealth, nor does 
sloth or luxury desire w^hat reputation does. So that by this 
means it often happens, that the wicked, whilst they desire all 
things, do not know what they would have, and so are ignorant 
what to take and what to leave, because their desires contradict 
one another , just as bad humors do in distempers which proceed 
from different causes, where the physicians are puzzled what 
remedy to prescribe, because that which is good for the expelling 
of one humor may be apt to nourish another. Such was the 
confusion of languages at Babel, and such was that, for the pre- 
venting of which the royal prophet prayed to God, saying, " De- 
stroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues, because I have beheld 
iniquity and contradiction in the city;" Ps. liv. 10. What, 
therefore, can this division of tongues, this iniquity and this con- 
tradiction be, but the disturbance which different passions make in 
the hearts of worldly-minded men when they oppose one another, 
and one desires that which is against the inclination and desire of 
another ? 

§ II. Of the inward Peace and Satisfaction good Men enjoy. 
— 8. Thus you see what the condition of the wdcked is, whilst 
the just, on the contrary, because they know how with prudence 
to moderate their desires, how to mortify their passions, how to 
make God, and not the perishable goods of this life, the only 
object of their happiness, and the centre of their repose; how 
to aim at nothing but the acquiring of those eternal goods, 
which no one can deprive them of, how to be in perpetual war 



166 THE sinner's guide. 

with self-love, with their own flesh, and with the whole train of 
their irregular appetites ; and because, in fine, they know how to 
resign their will to God's, to conform theirs to his, and throw 
themselves entirely into his arms, are never molested by any such 
cares, so as to have their inward peace lost, or so much as inter- 
rupted. 

This, amongst several others, is one of the chief rewards 
Almighty God promises to those who love him, as we may see 
almost every where in the Holy Scriptures. Holy David says, 
" Those that love thy law, O Lord, enjoy a perfect peace, and 
there is nothing that can make them fall ;" Ps. cxviii. 165. God 
himself says by the prophet Isaias, " I wish you had observed my 
commandments, your peace should have been like a river, and 
your justice like the waters of the sea ;" Isa. xlviii. 18. The 
reason of his calling this peace a river is, because it is able to ex- 
tinguish the flames of our desires, to appease the burning heat 
of our lusts, to water the dry and barren veins of our hearts, and 
to comfort and refresh our souls. Solomon assures us of the 
same truth in a divine manner, though in a few words, saying, 
"When the ways of man are acceptable to God, he will force 
even his enemies to make peace with him ;" Pro v. xvi. 7. What 
enemies are these, that are at war with man, but his own passions, 
and the evil inclinations of *his flesh, which are perpetually fight- 
ing with the spirit ? The Almighty, therefore, says, that he will 
make the flesh and the spirit live peaceably together, when, by 
virtue of this grace and of good habits, the flesh, with all its de- 
sires, shall accustom itself to the works of the spirit, and by that 
means live quietly with it, whereas before it was in continual op- 
position. For though virtue, at the beginning, meets with a 
great deal of opposition from the passions, yet when it comes to 
its perfection, it acts with a deal of sweetness and ease, and 
with much less contradiction. It is this peace, in fine, which 
holy David, by another name, calls the enlarging of the heart, 
when he says, " Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, O Lord, 
and my feet have not failed me ;" Ps. xvii. 37. The prophet by 
these words intends to show, how different the way of the virtuous 
is from that of the wicked, because whilst the one walk with their 
hearts oppressed and straitened by continual fears, solicitudes 
and apprehensions, like a traveller that is going through a nar- 
row path, with, steep rocks and precipices on both sides of him, 
the others, on the contrary, walk Avith a deal of security and joy, 
like a man in a plain and open way, that is in no apprehension of 
falling. The just understand this better by the practice than by 
theory, as being sensible, by their own experience, and the altera- 
tion they find in their own hearts, of the vast difference there is 
between the time they employed in the service of the world, and 
what they spend now in the service of God ; for whilst they 



THE SINNEH'S GUIDE. 167 

served in the world, they were on all occasions full of troubles, 
solicitudes, jealousies, fears and narrowness of heart ; but now 
they have forsaken the world, and fixed their affections on eternal 
goods, and placed all their happiness and confidence in God, they 
are out of the reach of all these things, with hearts so open, so 
free, and so resigned to the will of God, that they are so often 
astonished at the change, and cannot think themselves the same 
they were before, or at least they imagine they have new hearts, 
because they find such changes in them. And we may with truth 
affirm, that they are, and are not, the same persons, for, though 
they be the same in nature, they are not the same as to grace, 
which works this change, though no man can be assured of it. 

9. This is what God himself promised by his prophet Isaias, 
when he said, " When you shall go through the waters I will be 
with you, to save you from being drowTied ; and if you walk in 
the very midst of fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame 
so much as scorch you ;" Isa. xliii. 2. Now what are these waters 
but the rivers of tribulations we suffer in this life, and the deluge 
of innumerable miseries we meet with here every day ? And what 
is this fire but the heat of our flesh, which is the fiery furnace of 
Babylon, heated by Nabuchodonosor's servants, that is, by the 
de'V'ils, from whence the flames of inordinate passions and appetites 
are continually breaking out ? How can any man five in the 
midst of this fire and water, which the whole world is perpetually 
in danger of, without receiving hurt, and not be sensible, at the 
same time, that it was the presence of the Holy Ghost, and the 
assistance of God's grace, that preserved him ? This is the peace 
w^hich, as the apostle says, exceeds all imagination (Philip, iv. 
6), because it is so noble and so supernatural a gift of God, that 
it is impossible for man's weak understanding to conceive of itself, 
by what means a heart of flesh should come to enjoy such content, 
such quiet and such a calm, amidst the storms and tempests of the 
world. 

10. But he who enjoys this favor acknowledges and praises the 
author of these wonders, crying out with the prophet, " Come and 
see the works of the Lord, and the miracles he has wrought upon 
the earth, making war cease to the very remotest parts of the , 
earth. He has snapped the bow and broken the arms, and thrown 
the shield in the fire, sapng. Throw down your arms, and five in 
peace and quiet, that so you may know, that I am the Lord, and 
will be exalted in heaven and in earth." Ps. xlv. 9, 10, 11. This 
being so, what can there be in the w^orld more rich, more delight- 
ful, and more desirable, than this rest, this repose, this effusion and 
extension of heart, and this most happy peace ? 

11. But if you will go a little further, and would know from 
what cause this heavenly gift proceeds, I answer, it proceeds 
from all those other privileges and advantages of virtue we have 



168 THE sinner's guide. 

before mentioned ; for as, in the chain of vice, the links are all 
one within another, so in the ladder of virtue they have all a de- 
pendence on, and connection with, one another, in such a manner, 
that the highest, as it produces most fruit, so it has most roots to 
spring from. And thus this happy peace, which is one of the 
twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost, takes its rise from those other 
privileges we have before spoken of, but particularly from virtue 
itself, whose inseparable companion it is. For as an outward re- 
verence is naturally due to virtue, so is an inward tranquillity, being 
at the same time its effect and its reward. For since inward war, 
according to what we have already said, is begun by the pride and 
disturbance of the passions ; as soon as ever they are weakened by 
those virtues, whose duty it is to subdue them, the very occasions 
of these tumults and seditions are removed. And this is one of the 
three things, by means whereof we partake of the happiness of the 
kingdom of heaven, even here on earth. The apostle, speaking 
of them, says, " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but 
justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17.) ; 
where, by justice, according to the Hebrew way of speaking, is to 
be understood the very same virtue we are talking of; in which, 
together with these two admirable fruits, peace and joy in the 
Holy Ghost, consists the felicity which virtuous men enjoy, by 
anticipation, in this life. And to prove that this peace is an effect 
of virtue, the Almighty himself says expressly, by Isaias, " Peace 
shall be the w^ork of justice and silence, and everlasting security 
the fruit of it ; my people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and in 
the tabernacles of confidence, and in a plentiful rest ;" Isa. xxxii. 
17, 18. What he calls here silence, is nothing else but this same 
inward peace ; that is, the repose of the passions, which disturb 
the silence of the soul, by the perpetual clamors of their irregular 
lusts. 

12. The second cause this peace proceeds from is, the Hberty 
of the soul, and the dominion it has over the passions above spoken 
of. For just as when any country is brought under a foreign 
subjection, as soon as ever the inhabitants surrender themselves, 
there is a general peace immediately, and every one sits under his 
own fig-tree and under his own vine, without any fear of the 
enemy ; so after the passions of the soul, which are the causes of 
all its disquiets, are subjected to reason, there immediately follows 
in the soul an inw^ard silence and peace, which makes it live free 
from all disturbances imaginable. So that man being now free 
from their tyranny, and, what is more, keeping them in subjection 
to him, there is nothing left to disturb the peace he enjoys, though, 
on the contrary, whilst the passions had the rule and power, every 
thing was tossed up and down, and the whole man in general con- 
fusion and disorder. 

13. The third cause of this peace is the greatness of these 



THE sinner's guide. 169 

spiritual consolations, that lull asleep all the affections of our 
appetites, which, during that time, are content with what the su- 
perior part of the soul is pleased to give them, because the con- 
cupiscible appetite, after having tasted how sovereignly sweet and 
delightful God is, makes him the object of all its wishes, and the 
irascible is quiet, because its companion is satisfied ; and the whole 
man enjoys an entire peace and happiness, on account of his tasting 
the sovereign good. 

14. In the fourth place, this peace proceeds from the tes- 
timony and inward joy of a good conscience, which makes the soul 
of a just man easy and quiet, though it does not give him any 
perfect assurance, for fear of making him negligent, and putting 
him in danger of losing that holy fear which puts him forward. 

15. Lastly, this peace proceeds from the confidence just men have 
in Almighty God. It is this particularly, that gives them the 
greatest joy and comfort imagmable, even amidst the miseries of 
this life, because it is the very anchor they trust to, that is to 
say, because they assure themselves, that they have God for their 
Father, their Deliverer, their Defender, and their Shield, under 
whose protection they hve in peace and happiness, and have all the 
reason that can be to sing with the prophet, " I will lay me down 
and sleep in peace, because thou, O Lord, hast secured me in a 
particular manner, by the hope which I have in thy mercy ;" Ps. 
iv. It is from this hope, that the peace of the just springs, and in 
this they find a remedy for all their evils. How then can any man 
be troubled, who has so powerful a protector as his God ? 



CHAPTER X. 

Of the ninth Privilege of Virtue, viz. that God hears the Prayers 
of the JiLst, and rejects those of the Wicked, 

1. Another extraordinary privilege virtuous men enjoy is, 
that God hears their prayers, which is a sovereign remedy against 
all the necessities and miseries of this life. To make this the 
plainer, we are to understand, that there have been two universal 
deluges in the world, the one material, the other spiritual, but 
both of them caused by sin. The material deluge, which hap- 
pened in Noe's time, destroyed every thing in the world but the 
ark and what w^as witliin it, for every thing else was consumed 
by the waters, so that all the labors and riches of mankind, 
together with the whole earth itself, was swallowed up by the 
*Ba. But the other deluge, which was before this, and which 
'ose from the first sin that was committed, was much more ter- 
^h and much greater than this was, because it was the ruin not 
22 P 



170 THE sinner's guide. 

only of those persons who were alive at that time, but even of all 
ages past, present and to come. Nor is the hurt it does to the body- 
to be compared with what it does to the soul, which it strips and 
robs of those graces, that were bestowed on the whole world in the 
person of our first parent, as we may see in an infant newly born, 
who comes into the world as bare of all these goods as it is of 
clothes to cover it. 

2. From this first deluge flowed all those miseries and wants 
this mortal life is exposed to, which are so many and so great, 
that they have furnished a famous pope and doctor with matter to 
compose a book solely on this subject : Innocentius de Vilitate 
conditionis humancB. And several eminent philosophers, consider- 
ing on one side the excellence of man above all other creatures, 
and on the other, the infinite number of miseries and vices he is 
subject to, could not but wonder to see so much disorder in the 
world, though they were not capable of finding out the cause of 
all these miseries, which is nothing else but sm. For they saw 
that man was the only creature in the world that had such an in- 
finite variety of carnal delights and pleasures ; that none but he 
w^as oppressed with avarice, with ambition, an insatiable desire 
of fife, care and solicitude about a funeral, but most of all, with 
a concern for that which must follow. They observed, that no 
other creature had a more frail and uncertain life than man has ; 
that none had a more inflamed lust, none more subject to fear, 
and that without any ground, nor any more cruelly angry or en- 
raged than he. They took notice that other creatures spent the 
greatest part of their lives without sicknesses, or without being 
troubled with the physicians and medicines. They saw them pro- 
vided with all the necessaries, without taking any pains or care. 
But as for unhappy, miserable man, they saw him exposed to a 
thousand sorts of infirmities, accidents, necessities, misfortunes 
and pains, not only of the body, but of the soul, and as much 
disturbed at the miseries of his friends as at his own. They saw 
him sorry for what was past, afflicted with the present, and pain- 
fully solicitous about what was to come ; nay^ very often toiling 
and sweating all his lifetime for the poor sustenance of a little bread 
and water. 

3. If we were to count all the miseries of human life, we should 
never have done. Holy Job says, " The life of a man is a per- 
petual warfare upon earth, and his days are like the days of a 
hired servant, that labors from sunrising to sunset ;" Job. vii. 1, 2. 
Several of the old philosophers had such a lively sense of this 
truth, that some of them said, they could not tell whether to call 
nature a mother or a step-mother, because she has subjected uf 
to so many miseries. Others, again, used to say, it were bett' 
never to be born, or at least to die as soon as we are born : n'* 
some of them have gone so far as to say, there are but few per"^^ 



THE sinner's guide. 171 

that would accept of life after having made an experiment of it, 
that is, if it were possible to make a trial of it beforehand. 

4. Since, therefore, life has been reduced to this miserable 
condition by sin, and since we have lost our whole stock and sub- 
stance in this first deluge, what remedy can we expect he has 
left us, who has punished us so severely ? If a man that is sick 
and wounded were to be at sea in a gieat storm, and there lose 
all he is worth, what could he look for afterwards, having lost 
both his goods and his health, but beggary and want ? Every 
man must make this case his own ; for since there is no one but 
has lost all he is worth in this universal deluge, and is left so poor 
and naked, how can he help himself, but by crying like a poor beg- 
gar at the gates of God for relief and assistance ? The holy king 
Josaphat taught us this resource when he said, " Since we do not 
know what we ought to do, we have one remedy left us at least, 
wliich is to hft up our eyes, O Lord, towards thee ;" 2 Paral. 
XX. 12. The good king Ezechias has instructed us fully on the 
same point, when he said, " In one day thou wilt put an end to 
my life, O Lord ; but as for me, I will cry like the young swal- 
low, and moan like the dove ;" Isa. xxxviii. 14. As if he said, I 
am so poor, O Lord, and have such a dependence on your mercy 
and providence, that I cannot give myself any assurance of one 
day's life, and, therefore, all I have to trust in is, to be always 
moaning before you like a dove, and to cry out to you as the 
young swallow does to its dam. Thus said this holy man, though 
he was a great king ; and David, though much greater, made use 
of this same remedy in all his necessities ; and, therefore, inspired 
by the same spirit, and enlightened by the same knowledge, says, 
" I have called upon thee with my voice, O Lord, and with my 
voice I have addressed my prayer to thee, O my God ; I have 
sought after God in the day of tribulation, and I have stretched 
out my hand towards him in the night, when my soul refused to 
be comforted, and when my spirit failed me" (Ps. Ixxvii. 1, 2, 3) ; 
that is to say, when I look round about me, and see all the pas- 
sages of hope shut up, when nothing on earth can give me any 
ease, I immediately seek for a remedy from heaven by the help 
of prayer, which is the sovereign cure God has given me for all 
my ills. 

5. You will ask me, perhaps, whether this is a certain and 
universal cure for all the necessities of hfe or not ? This being 
a secret which depends entirely on the will of God, there is no 
one can answer it but those whom he has made choice of to dis- 
cover his will, which are the apostles and prophets ; one of them 
says, " There is no nation in the world so great, w^hich have their 
gods so near them, as our God is near us, when we pray to him ;" 
Deut. iv. 7. They are the words of God himself, though dehvered 
by the mouth of a man, and they assure us, with all the certainty 



172 THE sinner's guide. 

imaginable, that as often as we pray, though we see no one, and 
though no one answers us, that we do not speak to the walls or 
talk to the air, but that God is present with us and hears all we 
say, that he assists us in our prayers, that he pities our miseries, 
and prepares the remedy we ask for, in case it be proper for us. 
What greater comfort can a man have when he is at his prayers 
than such a certain plec^e of Almighty God's assistance ? And 
if this alone is sufficient to encourage and comfort us, how much 
more will the words of our Saviour, and those assurances he has 
given us iii his gospel, when he says, ", Ask, and you shall receive ; 
seek, and you shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened to you ;" 
(Matt. vii. 7.) Can we have a richer token than this ? Can any 
man doubt of the truth of these words ? Who is there that, as 
often as he goes to his prayers, is not comforted with the hope of 
this gacred promise ? 

6. This, therefore, is one of the greatest privileges the virtuous 
enjoy in this life, to know that these promises are made particu- 
larly for them. For one of the greatest favors God bestows on 
them, in reward of their obedience and piety, is, that he will be 
near them and hear the prayers they address to him. David as- 
sures us of it, when he says, " The eyes of the Lord are upon the 
just, and his ears are open to their prayers ;" Ps. xxxvi. 16. And 
God himself promises us the same by Isaias, saying, " Then," 
that is to say, when you shall have kept my commandments, "you 
shall call upon the Lord, and he will hear you ; you shall call out 
to him, and he will say, behold I am here" (Isa. Iviii. 9) ; that is, I 
am ready to grant whatever you shall desire. Nay, more than this, 
he promises them by the same prophet to hear them, not only when 
they call on him, but even long before. And yet, after all, none 
of these promises come any thing near that which we read in 
St. John, where our Saviour says, " If you shall remain in me and 
let my words remain in you, you shall ask whatever you shall have 
a mind for, and it shall be granted you ;" John xv. 7. But for 
fear this promise, as being so great, should be more than any man 
could believe, he repeats it a second time, and affirms it more 
positively, saying, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, that whatsoever 
you shall desire of my Father in my name he shall give it you ;" 
xvi. 24. Can there be any greater favor, any greater riches, 
or any more sovereign command than this is? You shall ask 
me, says he, for whatever you please, and it shall be granted you. 
Could any expression better become the person that promises than 
this does? Who but God could ever have made such a promise? 
Is there any one beside God, that is able to do such great things 
as these are? Or is there any one but him, who has so much good- 
ness as to oblige himself to grant such favors ? What else is this 
but to make man in some measure lord of all things, and to intrust 
him with the keys of the divine treasuries ? All the other favors 



THE sinner's guide, 173 

of God have their bounds set them, but this, above all the rest, as 
being the royal gift of an infinite Lord, carries some degree of in- 
finity along w^ith it. For our Saviour does not determine either 
this or that, or any particular thing, but whatever you shall desire 
(provided it be for your eternal good) shall he granted you. Could 
men but set a just value on things, and give them their true esti- 
mate, how great a rate would they esteem this at ? How happy 
would a man think himself to have so great an interest with his 
king as to obtain his grant for every thing he should desire ? Now 
if a man would look on it as so great a happiness to be so much in 
favor with an earthly king, what must he think it is to^ hiave so 
much interest with the King of heaven ? 

7. And that you may not think these are only bare promises 
without performance, do but look into the lives of the saints, and 
consider what great things they have done by the virtue of prayer. 
What did Moses in Egypt, and during all the time of his travels 
through the wilderness ? What did not Elias and Ehseus his dis- 
ciple ? What miracles were not wrought by the apostles, and all 
by prayer ? This was the weapon the saints fought with ; with this 
they overcame the devil, with this they triumphed over the world, 
with this they subdued nature, with this they turned the most 
violent flames into a gentle dew, with this, in fine, they appeased 
and quieted the wrath of God, and obtained of him whatever they 
asked. It is written of the holy father St. Dominick, that he told 
a certain friend of his he was never in his life denied any thing he 
had begged of the Almighty ; his friend desired him to pray that 
one Doctor Reginald, a man famous at that time, might become a 
religious man of his order : the holy man spent the next night in 
prayer for him, and the next day early in the morning, as he was 
beginning the hymn of the first hour, Jam lucis orto sidere, this 
new morning-star came into the choir, and there prostrating him- 
self at the saint's feet, desired, with a deal of humility, that he 
would give him the habit of his order. This, therefore, is the re- 
ward that is promised to the obedience of the just, and it is their 
faithful observing the voice of God, that makes him in some man- 
ner obedient to their prayers ; and because they answer to the call 
of God, he pays them again, according to the proverb, in the same 
coin, by answering them whenever they call on him. And for 
this reason Solomon says, " That the obedient man shall talk of 
victories ;" Prov. xxi. 28. For it is but just, that God complies 
with the will of man, when man complies with the will of God. 

8. But it happens quite otherwise m the prayers of the wicked : 
for the Aknighty tells them by Isaias, " When you shall stretch 
out your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you ; and when you 
shall multiply your prayers, I ^vill not hear them ;" Isa. i. 15. 
He threatens them in hke manner by his prophet Jeremy, saying, 
" In the time of their affliction they shall say, Arise, O Lord, and 

P2 



174 THE sinner's guide. 

deliver us." And he will ask them, " Where are your gods, which 
you made for yourselves ? Let them arise and deliver you in the 
time of your affliction." Jer. ii. 27. In the book of Job we read 
these words: "What hopes can the wicked man have, if he im- 
justly takes away his neighbor's goods ? Can he hope that God 
will hear his prayer when he shall be in distress?" Job xxvii. 8, 
9. And St. John, in his Epistle, says, " My beloved brethren, if 
our own conscience do not reprov-e us, we have a confidence in 
God, that whatsoever we shall ask we shall obtain of him, because 
we keep his commandments, and do those things which are pleas- 
ing to his sight ;" John iii. 21, 22. What the holy psalmist says 
is to the same effect : " If I have beheld iniquity, the Lord will 
not hear me ; but because I have not done wickedly, therefore he 
has heard my prayer ;" Ps. Ixxv. 18, 19. 

9. There are numberless examples of this sort, in holy writ, to 
show what vast difference there is between the prayers of the just 
and those of the wicked, and consequently the extraordinary ad- 
vantages w^hich the one have over the other ; because the just are 
heard and dealt with as true children of God, whilst the wicked 
are treated as enemies. And what wonder is it that their prayers 
should not be heard, since there are no good works, no devotion, 
no fervor of spirit, no humility to accompany them ? For, accord- 
ing to St. Cyprian, "It is impossible that a petition should be 
efficacious when prayer is barren ;" St. Cypr. Orat. Dominica. 
Though this is generally true, the Almighty's goodness is yet so 
great, that he sometimes vouchsafes to hear the prayers of the 
wicked, which, notwithstanding their want of merit, do not cease 
to obtain their end ; because, as St. Thomas says, " Merit pro- 
ceeds from charity, but the grant of the petition comes from the 
infinite goodness and mercy of God, who sometimes hears the 
prayers of such persons ;" St. Tho. 2. 2. q. 83. art. 15, 16. 



CHAPTER XL 

Of the tenth Privilege of Virtue, which is, the Assistance good 
Men receive from God in their Jifflictions ; and of the Impatience, 
on the Contrary, with which the Wicked suffer theirs. 

1. Another extraordinary privilege granted to virtue is, its 
encouraging its followers to bear up against the tribulations they 
cannot but meet with in this life. For we know there is no sea 
so tempestuous and inconstant as this life is. Because a man 
is never so secure of the felicity he enjoys as not to be exposed 
to an infinite number of such accidents and misfortunes as he 
never thought of, and which he is, nevertheless, every moment in 



\ 



THE sinner's guide. 175 

danger of falling into. It is, therefore, a matter of great conse- 
quence to observe with what difference the wicked and the good 
conduct themselves in all these changes ; for the good, considering 
they have God for their father, that it is he who sends them this 
cup as a potion prescribed them by a most experienced physician 
for their cure, that tribulation is like a file which takes off the rust 
of sin the cleaner, and pohshes it the brighter the rougher it is ; 
they consider it is this affliction that makes man more humble 
in thoughts, more devout in his prayers, and gives him a purer 
conscience. These considerations make them bow down their 
heads, and humble themselves with cheerfulness, in the time of 
their tribulation ; they put water in the chalice of the cross, or, 
to speak plainer, the Aknighty himself puts it in : " For he," as 
the holy psalmist says, " gives them tears to drink by measure ;" 
Ps. xcvii. 6. And there is no physician so careful in the mixture 
of his drugs, according to the constitution of his patient, as this 
heavenly physician is, m the tempering of tribulations, which he 
sends the just, according to the strength every one has to bear 
them : and if at any time the burthen should be increased, he 
increases the assistance he gives them for bearing it, that so the 
tribulation any man lies under may make him so much the richer, 
as it is the more painful and troublesome ; nay, when his afflictions 
are tempered thus, he is so far from endeavoring to get rid of 
them as things prejudicial, that he, on the contrary, longs for them 
as advantageous and profitable. So that, by the help of all these 
considerations, good men often bear their necessities, not only 
with patience, but ■v\ath pleasure, because they look on the 
reward, and not the labor, on the crown, and not the suffering, 
on the health their physic will restore them to, and not on the 
potion itself, not on the smart of the stroke, but on the love of 
him that lays it on, who has already said, " that he loves those 
that he chastises;" Heb. iii. 19. 

2. To all these considerations must be added the Almighty's 
grace, which, as we have shown already, is never wanting to a 
just man in the time of his tribulation. For God being so true a 
friend to those who love him, he is never nearer to them than when 
they are in affliction, though he seems then to be furthest from 
them. If you doubt of the truth hereof, do but look into the Holy 
Scriptures, and you will see nothing so frequently repeated or so 
often promised. Who does the royal prophet mean but God, 
when he says, "that he is their helper in their necessities and 
tribulation ?" Ps. ix. 10. Has not he himself commanded all per- 
sons to call on him during the time of their affliction, saying, 
" Call upon me in the day of tribulation, and I ^^^ll deliver you, 
and you shall glorify me?" Ps. xhx. 15. Has not the prophet 
testified this on his own experience, when he says, "When I 
called, the God of my justice heard me, he has enlarged my 



176 THE sinner's guide. 

heart in the day of tribulation"? Ps. iv. 1. Is not this the Lord 
in whom the prophet placed all his trust, saying, " I expected him 
who has preserved me from weakness of spirit and from the 
storm?" Ps. liv. 9. It is certain, that he does not speak here of 
any storm at sea, but of that storm, which the heart of a negh- 
gent and weak man that is in tribulation is tossed with ; and the 
more a man's heart is confined, the more boisterously this storm 
rages, which the prophet often repeats, for the greater confir- 
mation of this truth, and for the strengthening of our weakness. 
" The salvation of the just," says he, "comes from the Lord, and 
he is their protector in the time of their tribulation : and he will 
assist them and deliver them, and rescue them, from sinners, and 
save them, because they have put their trust in him;" Ps. xxxvi. 
39, 40. 

3. In another place the same prophet speaks yet plainer, thus : 
" How great, O Lord, and how many are the joys thou hast laid 
up for those that fear thee, and put their trust in thee in the pres- 
ence of the children of men ? Thou wilt hide them in the secret 
of thy face from the persecution of men : thou wilt protect them 
in the tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues. Blessed be 
the Lord, who has showed his mercy towards me in so wonder- 
ful a manner, by defending and securing me as if I had been in a 
fortified town. But the afflictions, which I have been overwhelmed 
with, have made me cry out, O Lord, I am turned out of thy 
sight." Ps. XXX. 20, 21, 22, 23. See here how plainly this holy 
prophet has taught us how God assists the just in their most press- 
ing necessities. But you must here take particular notice of 
these words, " Thou wilt hide them in the secret of thy face :" for 
by this, according to a certain interpreter, we are given to under- 
stand, that as the kings of the earth, when they have a mind to pro- 
tect any person with a more than ordinary care, keep him within their 
own palaces, that so not only the royal walls may secure him from 
his enemies, but that the king's continual presence, and the watchful 
eye he has over him, may be his security, than which none can 
be greater: in like manner, this sovereign King uses the same 
care for the security of those he loves. In confirmation of this, 
we both see and read, that holy men, even in the midst of the 
greatest dangers and temptations, still keep the same calmness 
and evenness of spirit as they had before, without showing the 
least concern or trouble in their looks, because they knew for 
certain, that he who protected them would be so faithful as not to 
forsake them, nay, on the contrary, that he would stand the nearer 
to them if he should see them in any great danger. Just as 
he did to the three young men whom Nebuchodonosor command- 
ed to be flung into the fiery furnace of Babylon ; Dan. iii. For 
the angel of the Lord was seen walking in the midst of them, and 
changed the violent flames into a cool, refreshing air. At which 



THE sinner's guide. 177 

the tyrant, being astonished, began to say, " Were they not three 
men that we bound and flung into the middle of the fire ? Behold 
I see four untied and walking together without having received 
any hurt, and the fourth of them is as beautiful as the Son of God." 
Ibid. ver. 24, 25. Do you not see now by this how certain it is, 
that Almighty God is with the just, whenever they are in any 
tribulation ? Nor is the care he took of young Joseph after his 
brethren had sold him, a less argument of this truth. For as we 
may read in the book of Wisdom, "He went down with him into 
the prison, and never left him when he was in his fetters, till he 
gave him the sceptre of Egypt, and power over those persons who 
had oppressed him : and he proved those to be liars that defamed 
him, and he gave him eternal glory ;" Sap. x. 13, 14. These ex- 
amples evince the truth of God^s promises made to us by the psalm- 
ist, when he says, " I am with him when he is in affliction ; I will 
deliver him and glorify him ;" Ps. xc. 15. O how truly happy must 
affliction be that makes us worthy the company of our God ! Let us 
all cry out, with St. Bernard, " If these are the effects of tribula- 
tions, grant, O God, that I may never be free from them, that so 
you may be always with me ;" Serm. 17. in Ps. xc. 

4. Add to this, the relief and assistance of all virtues which, 
upon such occasions, come in ready armed to succor the afflicted 
heart. For whenever the soul is straitened, or in any kind of 
danger from tribulation, all the virtues immediately run into her, 
and with what forces they can make, just as the blood does towards 
the heart whenever it is oppressed. In the first place comes faith, 
with a certain knowledge of the happiness and miseries of the next 
life, compared to which, all we can possibly suffer is but a mere 
trifle. Next comes hope, which makes man bear all his troubles 
with patience, in expectation of the reward that is to follow. After 
her comes charity, which makes them even desire to be afflicted 
in this world, that they may thereby express their affection for 
God. Then follows obedience and confoi'mity to the divine will, 
which helps them to receive whatever God sends them with cheer- 
fulness and without grumbling. Patience repairs thither, and it 
is her business to keep their shoulders up, lest they should bend 
beneath the weight. Then humility bows down their hearts, like 
young trees, by the stormy wind of affliction, teaching them to 
humble themselves under the powerful hand of God, and to ac- 
knowledge that what they suffer is infinitely less than their sins 
deserve. Another virtue that assists them is, the consideration of 
what Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, and of what all the saints 
have endured, which is far more severe and painful than what they 
sustain. 

5. Thus all virtues officiously assist us in such dangerous en- 
counters ; nor do they assist us in their service only, but with their 
words, if I may be allowed to term it so. For, first of all, Faith 

23 



178 THE sinner's guide. 

tells us, " That the sufferings of this world are not worthy of the 
glory which will be revealed to us in the next ;" Rom. viii. 18. 
Charity comforts us, saying, It is but reasonable we should suffer 
something for his sake who had so much love for us. Gratitude 
tells us, with holy Job, "If we have received good things from the 
hand of God, why should we not receive bad ones too? Job. 
ii. 10. Penance says. It is no more than justice that he who has 
done so much against God's will should undergo something now 
against his own. Loyalty says, that it is requisite we should, 
once at least in our life, give some token of our fidelity to him, 
who has been bestowing his favors on us ever since we were 
born. Patience tells us, " That tribulation produces patience, 
patience the proof of our faith, faith produces hope, and that hope 
will not leave a man in confusion." Rom. v. 3, 4, 5. Obedience 
says, The highest degree of sanctity a man can arrive to, and the 
most pleasing sacrifice he can offer to God, is to conform in all his 
sufferings to his will. 

6. But that which of all these virtues helps us most on such 
occasions, and which makes us most resolute in the very midst of 
tribulation, is a lively hope. It is what St. Paul himself teaches 
us, for he had no sooner said, " rejoicing in hope," than he adds, 
" being patient in tribulation." He knew very well that one is 
the consequence of the other, that is to say, that the strength we 
get by patience proceeds from the joy hope gives us. For which 
reason the apostle very elegantly calls this hope "an anchor" 
(Heb. vi. 19), because this lively hope being fastened strongly to 
the promises of heaven, it keeps the soul of the just man firm and 
constant in the midst of the waves and storms of this world, and 
makes it slight the violence of its winds and tempests, just as an 
anchor, when it is stuck into the ground, makes the ship ride se- 
curely on the water, and keeps it steady, though the winds and 
waves are continually beating against it. This, they say, was the 
practice of a certain saint, who, whenever he was in any kind of af- 
fliction, used to say, " The happiness I hope for is so great, that all 
I can suffer is delightful to me." 

7. Thus it is that all virtues meet and agree together for for- 
tifying a just man's heart, whenever he is in any tribulation. 
And if at any time he should lose courage, they come up to him 
again with much more vigor, and upbraid him after this manner : 
How now ? what is become of that lively faith and confidence you 
ought to have in Almighty God, if you begin to shrink at the very 
time he is going to make a trial of you, and to see what you are ? 
Where is your charity, your courage, your obedience, your pa- 
tience, your loyalty, and the fervor of your hope ? Is it for this 
you have so often prepared yourself, and made so many resolu- 
tions ? Is this all you have desired so earnestly of God, and prayed 
so often to him for ? Consider a little, that the duty and perfec- 



THE sinner's guide. 179 

tion of a good Christian does not consist in saying a few prayers, 
in fasting, in hearing of mass ; it is necessary, besides all tliis, that 
God should find you as faithful as another Job, or Abraham, in the 
time of tribulation. Such considerations as these, and the virtues 
a just man is endowed with, together with the Almighty God's 
never-failing grace, make him strong enough to bear those bur- 
thens not only with patience, but oftentimes with thankfulness 
and pleasure. Holy Tobias's example will suffice at present to 
prove this : we read of him, that God having permitted that he 
should lose his sight, after having suffered many other afflictions, 
for an example of patience to men in after ages, he was not trou- 
bled at all, nor did he lose the least part of that fideUty and obe- 
dience he paid to God before these misfortunes happened to him. 
Whereupon the Scripture immediately gives the reason of it, say- 
ing, " Having had the fear of God before his eyes from his very 
infancy, and having kept his commandments, he did not murmur 
against him, because he had struck him with blindness, but re- 
mained immovable in the fear of God, giving him thanks all the 
days of his life ;" Tob. ii. 13, 14. You see now by this, how 
plainly the Holy Ghost attributes the patience, with which a man 
suffers afflictions, to virtue and the fear of God, wliich, as the 
Scripture has declared, this holy man was so renowned for. I 
could bring several remarkable instances of holy men and women, 
even in our days, who have undergone all the troubles God has 
sent them with a deal of cheerfulness and love, who have found 
out honey even in gall, who in a storm had a calm, and have been 
refreshed and cooled in the very midst of the flames of Babylon. 

§ I. Of the Impatience and Rage of the Wicked in their 
Afflictions. — 8. But, on the contrary, how dreadful a thing it is 
to see the vdcked in any trouble ! to see them without charity, 
patience, courage, hope or any such virtue ! to see how all their 
miseries come on them, unarmed and unprepared ! to see how 
blind they are, and unable to behold that which the just see by a 
steady faith! to consider they have no lively hope to embrace 
what God sends them, nor have ever had any experience of his 
fatherly providence towards those who serve him ! It is a lament- 
able thing to see how they are swallowed up in this gulf, without 
finding any place to rest on, or to lay hold of. What better hopes 
can a man have of them, than that they should perish in the storm, 
or be killed in the battle, since they have no kind of assistance to 
trust to; because they sail without a rudder, and fight without 
weapons? What can a man expect, but that the fury of the winds, 
and the tempest of their aflflictions, should dash them against the 
rocks of anger, pride, dejection, impatience, blasphemy and de- 
spair ? Some there are who, through the excess of their miseries, 
have lost either their senses, their health, or their life, or at least 
their sight, by their continual tears. So that the just remain 



180 THE sinner's guide. 

sound and entire in the fire of adversity, like fine silver, whilst the 
wicked, like lead, melt and are dissolved as soon as they feel the 
heat. Thus, whilst the one cry, the others sing ; whilst the one 
are sinking, the others pass over dry-shod ; the one, like frail 
earthen vessels, crack in the fire, whilst the others, like pure gold, 
are the more refined. So that " the voice of salvation and of joy 
is continually sounding in the tabernacles of the just" (Ps. cxvii. 
lo), whilst there is nothing to be heard, in the habitations of the 
wicked, but the cries of sorrow and confusion. 

9. If you would more fully comprehend what I say, do but ob- 
serve what extravagances several females commit on the death of 
their children or husbands, and you will find some of them, out 
of madness, and rage, and the horror they have of their fife, pre- 
cipitate their death : others, that soon end their days with impa- 
tience and fury, caused by their grief; and thus a family is 
ruined and destroyed in a moment. And, what is worst of all, 
they are not only in a passion with, and cruel to themselves, but 
pour out horrible execrations against Almighty God, accusing his 
providence, condemning his justice, blaspheming his mercy, and 
opening their sacrilegious mouths against heaven, nay, against God 
himself, till, at length, all their curses fall on their own heads, with 
many other calamities much more dreadful, wherewith Almighty 
God punishes them for such horrible blasphemies. This is the 
reward he deserves, who is so impudent as to spit at heaven 
itself, and to kick against the spur. Sometimes this proves a com- 
plete cure, wrought by the hand of God, who thus diverts their 
hearts from some extraordinary afflictions, by sending them others 
that are greater. 

10. Thus, these miserable creatures, wanting the rudder of 
virtue to steer their vessels, are cast away in the storm ; for 
blaspheming and cursing him, they ought to praise and bless, for 
being puffed up with pride when they ought to humble themselves, 
for being stubborn when they are chastised, and growing worse 
on those remedies which were applied to make them better, which 
seems to be a beginning of their hell, and a resemblance of what 
they are to endure in the next world. For if hell be nothing but 
a place of sin and punishment, w^hy should we not look on this 
state as a hell, since it has so great a share of both ? 

11. But what a pity that still these troubles must be endured, 
and that, if they were borne with patience, they would become 
more tolerable, and at the same time more meritorious; and yet, 
in spite of all this, wretched man is resolved to deprive himself of 
the inestimable fruit of patience, and to increase the weight of his 
burden, by adding the burden of impatience, which alone is much 
heavier than all the rest of the load. It is a great trouble to 
labor and toil, to receive no reward, nor know whose account 
to place it to ; but it is much worse to lose all that is got, and. 



THE sinner's guide. l&l 

after travelling all night, to be further from tne journey's end in 
the morning. 

12. By what has been said, we may perceive the difference 
there is between the use the good and the bad make of their 
afflictions. With what peace, what joy, and what courage do the 
good bear theirs, whilst the wicked are quite overwhelmed with 
grief and trouble ! This was represented to the life, by the great 
lamentations and complaints which were heard throughout the 
land of Egypt, when God destroyed all their first-born in one 
night (Exod. xii.), for there was not a house free from grief and 
sorrow ; and yet there was no cry heard in the land of Jessen, 
where the children of Israel lived. 

13. Besides this peace, what shall I say of the advantages the 
just make of tribulations which are so prejudicial to the wicked ? 
St. Chrysostom says, " that as gold is refined by the same fire 
which consumes wood, so the just man, like gold, becomes more 
pure in the fire of tribulation, whilst the wacked, like dry wood, 
is burned to ashes;" St. Chrysostom, 14. in Matt. 1. St. 
Cyprian has something to the same purpose : he says, " that as 
the wind in harvest time blows away the fight chaff", but 
cleanses the corn, so the wind of tribulation blows away the 
wicked like light straw, but purges the just, and gathers them 
together like good wheat ;" Cypr. de unitate Ecclesise. The same 
is represented to us by the waters of the Red Sea, which were 
so far from drowning the children of Israel, as they passed through 
them, that, on the contrary, they served them for a wall on the 
right hand and on the left ; whereas they broke down on and 
drowned the Egyptians' chariots and all Pharao's army. The 
waters of tribulation, after the same manner, are a greater secu- 
rity to virtuous men, and serve as the preservatives and trial of 
their humility and patience ; but are like a tempestuous sea to the 
wicked, which drowns' and buries them in the aby.ss of impatience, 
blasphemy and despair. 

14. This, therefore, is another very considerable advantage 
virtue has over vice ; and it was on this account that the philoso- 
phers extolled philosophy so much, imagining that the making of 
a man constant and resolute in all kind of adversities belonged to 
it. But they deceived themselves in this point, as they did in 
many others, for neither true virtue, nor true resolution and con- 
stancy, are to be found among the philosophers, but in the school of 
that Master, who, being nailed to a cross, comforted us by his 
example, and reigning now in heaven strengthens us by his Spirit, 
and encourages us with the hopes of the glory he has promised us ; 
of all which, human philosophy is incapable. 

Q 



1^ THE sinner's guide. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The eleventh privilege of Virtue, which consists in the Care God 
takes to supply the temporal JYecessities of the Just. 

1. All we have hitherto treated of are the spiritual favors which 
are bestowed on the followers of virtue in this life, besides the 
everlasting glory which is laid up for them in the next. These 
benefits were all promised them at our Saviour's coming into the 
world, as all the prophecies in the Holy Scriptures testify ; for 
which reason he is justly styled the Saviour of the world, because 
it is by him we obtain true salvation, which is, grace, wisdom, 
peace, victory, and dominion over our passions, the consolations 
of the Holy Ghost, the riches of hope, and, in fine, all other 
benefits requisite for obtaining this salvation, of which the prophet 
has said, " Israel has been saved by the Lord with an eternal 
salvation;" Isa. xiv. 17. 

But, if there be any person so carnal as to have a greater love 
for the goods of 'the flesh, than for those of the spirit, as the Jews 
had, we will not differ on this account, for he shall herein find 
more satisfaction, as to this part, than he can possibly wish. For 
what else could the wise man mean, when, speaking of true 
wisdom, in which the perfection of virtue consists, he says, " Length 
of days is at her right hand, and riches and glory at her left"? 
Prov. iii. 16. So that she holds these two sorts of goods in her 
hands, inviting men with one of them to the enjoyment of eternal 
blessings, and vdth the other to search after temporal. Do not 
imagine that God starves those who serve him, or that he is so 
careless as to feed the very ant and worms of the earth, and 
suffer them to want. If you will not beheve me, read the sixth 
chapter of St. Matthew, and there you will see what earnest and 
security he has given you. " Behold the fowls of the air," says 
our Saviour, ** for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather 
into their barns, and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Of 
how much more value are you than they ?" Matt. vi. 26. A little 
after he concludes thus : " Do not, therefore, be solicitous, saying. 
What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what clothes shall 
we put on? for the heathens trouble themselves about all these 
things. Do you, therefore, seek first the kingdom of God, and 
these things shall be given to you." ver. 31, 32, 33. It is for 
this reason particularly that the holy psalmist, observing that this 
alone was a sufficient motive to make men submit to one another, 
invites us to serve God, saying, " Fear the Lord, all you his saints ; 
because those that fear him want for nothing. The rich have been 
in want, and have suffered hunger ; but those that seek the Lord 
shall not be deprived of any thing that is good." Ps. xxxiii. 10, 11. 



THE sinner's guide. 183 

This is so certain, that the same prophet adds in another psalm, 
" I have been young, but now I am old ; yet I never saw the just 
man forsaken, nor his seed begging bread ;" Ps. xxxvi. 25. 

2. If you would be better informed of the share the just have 
in this promise, hear what God himself says in the book of 
Deuteronomy (ch. xxviii. 1 — 12), to those that keep his com- 
mandments : " If you "w^ll hear the voice of the Lord thy God, to 
do and keep all his commandments, which I command thee this 
day, the Lord thy God vdll make thee higher than all the nations 
that are on the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon thee 
and overtake thee; yet so if thou hear his precepts. Blessed 
shalt thou be in the city, and blessed in the field. Blessed shall 
be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, and the 
fruit of thy cattle, the droves of thy herd, and the folds of thy 
sheep. Blessed shall be thy barns, and blessed thy stores. Blessed- 
shalt thou be coming in and going out. The Lord shall cause 
thy enemies that rise up against thee to fall down before thy face : 
one way shall they come out against thee, and seven w^ays shall 
they flee before thee. The Lord will send forth a blessing upon 
thy storehouses, and upon all the works of thy hands : and will 
bless thee in the land that thou shalt receive. The Lord will raise 
thee up to be a holy people to himself, as he swore to thee : if thou 
keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his 
ways. And all the people of the earth shall see that the name of 
'the Lord is invocated upon thee, and they shall fear thee. The 
Lord will make thee abound with all goods, with the fruit of thy 
womb, and the fruit of thy cattle, with the fruit of thy land, 
which the Lord swore to thy fathers that he would give thee. 
The Lord will open his excellent treasure, the heaven, that it 
may give rain in due season : and he will bless all the works of 
thy hands." These are the words of God himself, delivered by 
his prophet. Tell me now, after all this, are the treasures of 
both the Indies to be compared with such infinite blessings as 
these are ? 

3. But supposing the promise of temporal blessings was made 
to the Jews, rather than Christians, because the Almighty, by 
Ezekiel (ch. xxxiv. xxxvi.), promises to enrich these with other 
kind of goods of greater value, to wit, those of grace and glory ; 
yet as God, in the carnal law, did not cease to give spiritual goods 
to those Jews that were virtuous, so neither will he refuse to 
give temporal blessings to good Christians in the spiritual law, 
and that with the addition of two extraordinary advantages, of 
which the wicked have not the least knowledge. The one is, 
that he gives them these sort of blessings like an experienced 
physician, according to their several necessities, that they may 
serve to support and not to puff them up. The wicked know 
nothing at all of this, for they heap up all they can, without 



184 THE sinner's guide. 

considering that superfluity of temporal goods is no less prejudicial 
to the welfare of our soul, than superfluity of meats is to the health 
of the body. For, though a man cannot naturally live without 
eating, yet to eat too much impairs the health, and though man's 
life is in his blood, yet too much of it quite chokes him up. The 
other advantage is, that with less noise he gives them much more 
content and satisfaction, which is the end of men's seeking after 
temporal riches, than the others can purchase with all their labor ; 
because whatsoever God can do by the means of second causes, he 
can do by himself much more perfectly. It is what he has done 
to all the saints, in whose name St. Paul spoke, when he said, 
^'As having nothing, and yet possessing all things" (2 Cor. vi. 
10) ; because we are as content with the little we have, as if we 
were lords of all the w^orld. Travellers endeavor to carry what 
money they have in gold, because they can carry much more, and 
with less burden ; so the Almighty provides for those who love 
him, by giving them a lighter burden, but much more of joy, 
ease and satisfaction. Thus the just travel in this life naked 
and contented, poor and rich, whilst the wicked w^allow in their 
riches, and yet die for hunger. And though, like Tantalus, they 
are up to their very chin in water, yet they cannot quench their 
thirst. 

4. For this and such like reasons, Moses so earnestly recom- 
mended the keeping of the law of God, desiring it should be our 
whole study and care, as well knowing that all happiness consists 
in the fulfilling thereof. " Lay up these words of mine," says he, 
" in thy heart ; teach them to thy children, and meditate upon 
them as thou sittest in thy house, and as thou art upon journeys, 
w^hen thou goest to bed, and when thou risest again. And thou 
shalt bind them as a sign on thy hand, and keep them always be- 
fore thy eyes, and write them over thy porch and over the door 
of thy house, that by this means thy days may be multiplied, and 
those of thy posterity, in the land which God shall give thee ;" vi. 
6, 7, 8, &c. What was it, O holy prophet, that you saw, what 
did you find in the keeping of God's commandments, that should 
make you recommend them so earnestly to others ? You, without 
doubt, understood the inestimable value of this good, as being so 
great a prophet, and privy to the divine counsels : you knew that 
all kinds of goods whatever, present and to come, temporal and 
eternal, spiritual and corporal, were contained in and depended 
on this, and that if we complied with this obligation, w^e should 
satisfy all the rest : you knew very well that he who made it his 
business to do the will of God, should never lose his labor, be- 
cause the doing of this was pruning his vine, watering his gar- 
den, increasing his estate, and looking after all his affairs, much 
better than he could do it himself, because it laid an obligation 
on God to do it for him. For the condition of the treaty, which 



THE sinner's guide* 185 

God has made with man is, that whilst man is busy about keep- 
ing of God's law, God should be busy about looking after man's 
concerns. And there is no fear of the contract being broken on 
God's side. On the contrary, if man prove a faithful servant, 
God will still show himself a better master. This is that one 
thing which our Saviour said was necessary, to wit, the know- 
ing and the loving of God. For he that knows how to please 
God, is secure from all the rest. " Piety," says St. Paul, " is pro- 
fitable for all things, because all the promises, both of this life 
and the Hfe to come, are for it ;" 1 Tim. iv. 8. You see here how 
plainly the apostle promises to piety, which is the worship of 
God, not only the goods of the next, but those of this life too, 
as far as they contribute to the gaining of eternal happiness, and 
yet man is not excused on this account from labor, or from com- 
plying with the obhgations of his state or calling as far as he is 
able. 

4 I. Of the Poverty of the Wicked. — 5. If any one desires 
to know what poverty, what afflictions and calamities are laid up 
for the wicked, let him but read the twenty-eighth chapter of 
Deuteronomy, and he will there see such things as will astonish 
and affright him : where, amongst many other dreadful threats, 
Moses delivers these most terrifying words from the mouth of 
God : " If thou wilt not hear the voice of the Lord thy God, to 
keep, and to do all his commandments and ceremonies, which I 
have commanded thee this day, all these curses shall come upon 
thee and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, cursed 
in the field. Cursed shall be thy barn, and cursed thy stores. 
Cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, 
the herds of thy oxen, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt 
thou be in coming in, and cursed going out. The Lord shall 
send upon thee famine and hunger, and a rebuke upon all the 
works which thou shalt do ; until he consume and destroy thee 
quickly, for thy most wicked inventions, by which thou hast 
forsaken me. May the Lord set the pestilence upon thee, until 
he consume thee out of the land which thou shalt go in to possess. 
May the Lord afflict thee with miserable want, with the fever 
and with the cold, vdth burning and with heat, and with corrupted 
air, and with blasting, and pursue thee till thou perish. Be the 
heaven that is over thee of brass ; and the ground thou treadest 
on of iron. The Lord give thee dust for rain upon thy land, 
and let ashes come down from heaven upon thee, till thou be con- 
sumed. The Lord make thee to fall down before thy enemies ; 
one way mayst thou go out against them, and flee seven ways, 
and be scattered throughout all the kingdoms of the earth. And 
be thy carcass meat for all the fowls of the air, and the beasts of 
the earth, and be there none to drive them away. The Lord 
24 Q2 



186 THE sinner's guide. 

strike thee with the ulcer of Egypt, and the part of thy body, by 
which the dung is cast out, with the scab and with the itch; so 
that thou canst not be healed. The Lord strike thee with mad- 
ness and blindness, and fury of mind, and mayst thou grope at mid- 
day as the blind is wont to grope in the dark, and not make straight 
thy ways. And mayst thou at all times suffer wrong, and be op- 
pressed with violence, and mayst thou have no one to deliver 
thee. Mayst thou take a wife, and another sleep with her. 
Mayst thou build a house, and not dwell therein. Mayst thou 
plant a vineyard, and not gather the vintage thereof. May thy 
ox be slain before thee, and thou not eat thereof. May thy ass 
be taken away in thy sight, and not restored to thee. May thy 
sheep be given to thy enemies, and may there be none to help 
thee. May thy sons and thy daughters be given to another peo- 
ple, thy eyes looking on and languishing at the sight of them all 
the day, and may there be no strength in thy hand. May a peo- 
ple, which thou knowest not, eat the fruit of thy land, and all 
thy labors; and mayst thou always suffer oppression, and be 
crushed at all times. And be astonished at the terror of those 
things which thy eyes shall see. May the Lord strike thee with 
a very sore ulcer in the knees and in the legs, and be thou incura- 
ble from the sole of thy foot to the top of thy head. The Lord 
shall bring thee and thy king, whom thou shalt have appointed 
over thee, into a nation which thou and thy fathers know not ; 
and there thou shalt serve strange gods, wood and stone. And 
thou shalt be lost as a proverb and a by-word to all people among 
whom the Lord shall bring thee in." Deut. xxviii. 15—88. In 
fine, after a great many other curses, and those very dreadful 
ones, he adds further : " All these curses shall come upon thee, 
and shall pursue and overtake thee till thou perish : because thou 
heardst not the voice of the Lord thy God, and didst not keep his 
commandments and ceremonies which he commanded thee. And 
they shall be as signs and wonders on thee, and on thy seed for- 
ever. Because thou didst not serve the Lord thy God with joy 
and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things. Thou 
shalt serve thy enemy, whom the Lord shall send upon thee, in 
hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of all things ; and 
he shall put an iron yoke upon thy neck, till he consume thee. 
The Lord will bring upon thee a nation from afar, and from the 
uttermost ends of the earth, like an eagle that flieth swiftly; whose 
tongue thou canst not understand : a most insolent nation, that will 
show no regard to the ancient, nor have pity on the infant, and 
will devour the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed, and 
will leave thee no wheat, nor wine, nor oil, nor herds of oxen, 
nor flocks of sheep : until he destroy thee, and consume thee in 
all thy cities, and thy strong and high walls be brought down, 



THE sinner's guide. 187 

wherein thou trustedst in all thy land. Thou shalt be beseiged 
within thy gates, in all thy land, which the Lord thy God will give 
thee ; and thou shalt eat the fruit of thy w^omb, and the flesh of 
thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God shall 
give thee, in the distress and extremity w^herewith thy enemy 
shall oppress thee." Ibid. ver. 45 — 54. These threats and curses 
are all taken out of the Holy Scriptures, where you may find 
many more w^hich I here omit to relate ; but whoever reads them 
wdth attention, will meet with such dreadful things as cannot 
but astonish him. Then, perhaps, he will open his eyes, and 
begin to have some knowledge of the rigor of God's justice and 
of the mahce of sin, together with the extreme hatred he bears 
it, as appears by the terrible punishments he inflicts on it in this 
life, by which men may conjecture what a sirmer is to expect in the 
next. Besides he vnW pity the insensibihty and misery of the wicked, 
who are so bhnd as not to see the dreadful punishments that are 
reserved for them. 

6. Do not persuade yourself, that these threats are only empty 
words, but consider that they are rather a prophecy of those mis- 
fortunes which have since happened to that people : for during 
the reign of Acham, king of Israel, the king of Syria's army 
having besieged them in Samaria, we read that men were forced 
to eat pigeon's dung, which was sold at a great price. Nay, they 
were reduced at last to such extremities, that mothers devoured 
their own children ; 4 Kings vi. And Josephus tells us, they were 
brought to the same misery again in the siege of Jerusalem ; Jos. 
L. 7. There is scarce any body but has heard of the captivity 
of this people, with the utter subversion of the whole kingdom: 
for ten tribes of them were carried away into perpetual captivity 
by the king of Assyria, and never returned home again ; and the 
two which remained were quite destroyed a great while after, by 
the Roman army, who took many of them prisoners ; but the num- 
ber of these that were slain or died during the siege was far greater,' 
according to the relation of the same historian. 

7. Let no man deceive himself by imagining, that all these ca- 
lamities concerned none but this people ; for they belonged to all 
those in general, who, professing to serve God, nevertheless con- 
temn and violate his law : it is what he himself assures us of by 
his prophet Amos, saying, "Was it not I that brought the children 
of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Palestines out of Cap- 
padocia, and the Syrians out of Cyrene ? Behold the eyes of the 
Lord are over the kingdoms, which commit sin, for to destroy and 
blot them out of the face of the earth." Amos ix. 7, 8. By this 
he gives us to understand, that all these changes of the kingdoms 
and states, as the destroying of some and the estabhshing of 
others, are the effects of sin. And if any one doubts whether 



18S THE sinnee's guide. 

this concerns us or no, let him search into the histories of past 
ages, and he will find, that God Almighty deals after the same 
manner with all the wicked, but particularly with those who 
have known the true law and yet have not observed it. He will 
there see that a great part of Europe, Africa and Asia, which 
was formerly full of Christian churches, is now in the hands of 
heathens and barbarians ; he will see what calamities the church 
has suffered from the Goths, the Huns and the Vandals, who, in 
St. Augustine's time, laid all the countries of Africa waste, spar- 
ing neither man, woman, nor child, old or young. And at the 
same time, all the country of Dalmatia and the neighbor- 
ing towns were so ruined by those barbarians, that, as St. 
Jerome, who was himself of that country, says, " Whosoever passed 
through it could see nothing but heaven and earth, so univer- 
sal w^as the desolation;" S. Hier. in c. 1. Sophon. All this 
serves to inform us, that virtue and true devotion not only assist 
us, in order to obtain the eternal goods, but also to settle us in 
the possession of the temporal. Wherefore, let the consideration 
of this, and all those other advantages virtue has, serve to make 
an impression on our hearts, and excite them to the love of that 
\vhich delivers us from so great evils, and procures us such mighty 
benefits. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The twelfth Privilege of Virtue, which is the quiet and happy 
Death of the Virtuous : and, on the Contrary, the deplorable End 
of the wicked. 

1. Add to these privileges, the glorious death of good men, to 
which all the others are directed. For if, as we commonly say, 
it is the end that crowns the work, what can better deserve a 
crown, or what can be more glorious than the end of good men, 
and what more miserable than that of the ^vicked ? " The death of 
the saints," says the psalmist, " is precious in the sight of the 
Lord, but the death of sinners is the worst ;" (Ps. cxv. 15 ; xxxiii. 
22) ; because it is the greatest of all miseries either of the body 
or soul. And, therefore, St. Bernard, writing upon these words, 
The death of sinners is the worst, says, " That first of all it is 
bad, because it takes them away from the world ; worse yet, be- 
cause it separates the soul from the body ; but worst of all, be- 
cause of those two eternal torments, fire everlasting, and the 
worm that never dies, which immediately follow it;" S. Bern. 



THE sinner's guide. 



Serm. inter parvos. It cannot but be a great affliction to such 
persons to leave the world, a much greater to forsake their own 
flesh, but the greatest of all, will be hell torments, w^hich they are 
to be for ever condemned to. These, therefore, and several other 
miseries put together, will disturb the 'v\dcked at this time ; because 
then they w^U first be sensible of the symptoms and accidents of 
their distemper, the racking pains they endure all over their bodies, 
the frights and terrors of their souls, the anguish their present con- 
dition causes, their apprehensions of what must follow, the remem- 
brance of what is past, the reflection on the accounts they are 
going to give in, the dread they have of the sentence to be passed 
against them, the horror of the grave, their being separated from 
all they had an inordinate affection for, that is, from their riches, 
their friends, their wives, their children, nay, from the very light 
and common air, which they enjoy, and even from life itself. 
The greater love they had for any of these things, the more un- 
willing will they be to leave it : for, according to the great St. 
Augustine, "What we possess w^th love, we can never lose without 
grief;" De. Civit. Dei. Conformable to which was this saying of a 
philosopher : " The fewer pleasures a man has enjoyed, the less he 
is afraid of death. 

2. But the greatest torment they suffer at this time, is that of 
an evil conscience, with the consideration and dread of those 
pains which are prepared for them; because man, being then 
alarmed at the approach of death, begins to open his eyes, and to 
consider what he never thought of in all his life before. Eusebius 
Emissenus gives us a very good reason for this m one of his Hom- 
ilies, where he says, " Because at this time man lays aside all 
the solicitude with which he used to seek for and procure all that 
is necessary for life, and does not trouble his head any more, 
either about working or fighting, or any other employ whatever ; 
it follows from hence, that the soul, being free from every thing 
else, thinks of nothing but the account she must make, and all 
her powers are overcharged with the weight of the divine justice 
and of God Almighty's judgments. Man, therefore, lying in this 
miserable condition, with life behind his back and death before 
his eyes, he easily forgets the present, which he is going to leave, 
and begins to think of the future, which he is in continual expec- 
tation of. There he sees that his pleasures and delights are now 
at an end, and that he has nothing left him but his sins to appear 
against him, before the tribunal of God." S. Euseb. Homil. 1. 
2d Monachos. The same doctor, discoursing again upon this sub- 
ject in another homily, says, " Let us consider what complaints 
a negligent soul will make at its departure out of this life ; what 
tribulation and anguish will she be filled with ! What clouds and 
darkness will she lie under, when, among those enemies that 



190 THE sinner's guide. 

surround her, she shall see her own conscience, attended by a mul- 
titude of sins, the forwardest to appear against her ! For she 
alone, without any other witness, will appear before us, to convince 
us by her evidence, and confound us by her knowledge. It will be 
impossible to hide any thing from her, or to deny any thing she 
shall charge us with, since there will be no need of going any fur- 
ther than ourselves for a witness." 

3. Peter Damianus handles this matter much better and more 
at large (Pet. Damian. c. 6. in Institut. Moniol. ad Blancam 
Commitissam) : " Let us consider," says he, " with attention, 
what dreadful fears and apprehensions the soul of a sinner will 
be oppressed with, when she is on the point of leaving the prison 
of the flesh, and how the stings of a guilty conscience will prick 
and torment her. Then she calls to mind the sins she has com- 
mitted, and sees how she has despised and broken the command- 
ments of God ; then she is troubled to have lost so much time, in 
which she might have done penance, and with affliction sees that 
the accounts she must unavoidably give, and the time of divine 
vengeance, is just at hand. She would willingly stay, but is 
forced to go ; she would fain recover what she has lost, but can- 
not obtain leave to do it. If she casts her eyes behind her, and 
considers the whole course of her life, it seems no more to her 
than a short moment : if she looks forward, she sees there the 
space of an infinite eternity, that expects her. She w^eeps when 
she considers the everlasting happiness she has lost, which she 
might have gained in a short time of this life ; and to be deprived 
of this unspeakable sweetness of eternal delight for a fleeting 
carnal satisfaction, is a great affliction to her. She is filled 
with confusion to consider, that, for the pleasing this miserable 
body, which must be the food of worms, she has neglected herself, 
who ought to have taken her place amongst the choirs of angels. 
When she reflects upon the brightness and glory of immortal 
riches, she is ashamed to see herself deprived of them, for having 
sought after such as were base and perishable. But when she has 
done looking upward, and cast her eyes down upon the dark and 
frightful valley of this world, and at the same time sees the glory 
of the eternal light above her, she is fully convinced, that all she 
loved in this world was nothing but night and darkness. O ! if 
she could but then obtain a little time to do penance in, what 
austerities and mortifications would she not undergo ? What is it 
she would not do ? What vows would she not make, and what 
prayers would she not be continually offering up? But whilst 
man is revolving these things in his mind, behold the messenger 
and forerunners of death are just at hand, his eyes become dark 
and hollow, his breast heaves, his voice grows hoarse, he rattles in 
his throat, his limbs wax cold, his teeth turn black, he foams at 



THE sinner's guide. 191 

the mouth, and his face grows wan and pale ; whilst these things, 
which serve as so many preparatives to approaching death, orderly 
fall out, the miserable soul sees before her all the works, words and 
thoughts of her late wicked hfe, which give a lamentable testimo- 
ny against her, as being the author of them all : and though she 
would willingly turn her eyes away from them, she cannot, but 
is forced to see them. Let us add to all this, the horrible pres- 
ence of the devils on the one side, and that of virtue and of the 
blessed angels on the other : and we may soon guess which of 
the two parties this prey is like to fall to ; because, if the dying 
man carries any works of piety and virtue with him, he is im- 
mediately comforted by the invitations and caresses of the angels ; 
but if the foulness of his sins, and of his wicked life past, require 
that he should be treated in another manner, immediately he 
trembles every joint of him ; from fear he falls into despair ; — 
and in this condition is snatched, rent and torn away from his 
miserable flesh, and thrown headlong into everlasting torments." 
Thus far Peter Damianus. 

4. If all this be true, and must happen accordingly, what need 
any more, if a man has not lost his senses, to make him see how 
miserable the condition of the wicked is, and how carefully to be 
avoided, since their end is like to be so wretched and deplorable ? 

o. If the goods of this world could do any service at that time, 
as they do all the other part of life, their misery would be much 
easier, but there is none of them that give the least assistance. 
For neither can honors profit a man, nor friends help him ; he 
can have no servants to attend him ; he must expect no favor, 
because of his quality, no succor from his estate, nor any ser- 
vice from any thing whatever, but from virtue and innocence of 
life. For, as the wise man says, Riches cannot profit us in the 
day of vengeance, hut justice alone, that is, virtue will deliver 
from death; Prov. xi. How, therefore, can the wicked man, 
finding himself so poor and destitute of all kind of help, forbear 
trembling to see himself thus forsaken and neglected at the judg- 
ment-seat of Almighty God ? 

§ I. Of the Death of the Just. — 6. But, on the contrary, how 
secure are the just against all these miseries when they come to 
die ! For as the wicked at this time receive the punishment of 
their sins, the just receive the reward of their deserts, according 
to Ecclesiasticus, who says. He that fears the Lord shall be happy 
in the last days, and in the day of his death he shall be blessed 
(Ecclus. i. 19) ; that is, he shall have the rich reward of his labors. 
St. John, in his Revelation, declares the same thing to us more 
expressly, when he tells us, That he heard a voice from heaven 
which commanded him to write, and the words which it dictated 
were these : Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, because 



192 THE sinner's guide. 

the Holy Ghost tells them the time is come that they shall rest 
from their labors, for their works follow them ; Apoc. xiv. 13. 
How is it possible then for a just man, that has received such a 
promise as this from Almighty God himself, to be frightened at the 
hour of his death, when he sees himself just on the point of re- 
ceiving what he has been laboring for all his life-time ? For this 
reason, one of holy Job's pretended friends tells him. That if 
there he no iniquity nor injustice found in him, he shall he as 
bright in the evening as the su?i at noon-day, and when he shall 
imagine himself to he quite spent, he shall arise like the morning 
star ; Job xi. 14, 17, St. Gregory, writing upon these words, 
says, that " The reason why this morning brightness shines upon 
the just in the evening is, because he perceives some glimmerings, 
at the hour of his death, of that glory which God has prepared 
for him ; and, therefore, when others are the most dejected, he is 
then most cheerful ;" St. Greg. 10. Moral, c. 1. Solomon, in his 
Proverbs, testifies the same, when he says. The wicked man shall 
be rejected because of his sins, hut the just is in hopes at the hour 
of his death ; Prov. xiv. 32. 

7. To prove this by an example ; could any man have better 
hopes or more courage than the glorious St. Martin had on his 
death-bed, who, seeing the devil by him, asked him, " What dost 
thou do here, cruel beast ? thou shalt find no mortal sin in me to 
glut thyself with, and therefore I shall be received into Abraham's 
bosom in peace." Again, what greater confidence can be, than 
that St. Dominick had, when he was in the same circumstances ? 
for seeing the religious brothers all about him, bemoaning them- 
selves for his departure, and the want they should find in the loss 
of him, he comforted them with these words : " Let nothing trouble 
or afflict you, children, for I shall do you much more service where 
I am going, than I shall be able to do you here." How can a 
man lose courage in this combat, or be afraid of death, who looked 
on eternal glory to be so much his own, as to be in hopes of 
obtaining it, not only for himself, but for his children too ? 

8. It IS on this account the just have so little reason to be afraid 
of death, that they praise God when they are dying, and thank 
him for having brought them to their end, looking on death as a 
cessation from their labors, and the beginning of their happiness 
and glory. Whereon St. Augustine, on St. John's Epistle, says, 
" It IS not to be said of him that dies in peace, but of him that 
lives in peace, and dies with joy, that he desires to be dissolved 
and be with Christ ;" St. Aug. 9. in Ep. Joan. Thus we see the 
just man has no reason to be troubled at death; but we may with 
justice say of him, that, like the swan, he goes singing out of the 
world, praising and glorifying God for calling him to himself. He 
is not afraid of death, because he has feared God, and whosoever 



THE sinner's guide. 193 

has done that, has nothing else to be afraid of. He is not afraid 
of death, because he has been afraid of hfe ; the fear a man has 
of death, being only the effects of a bad life. He is not afraid of 
death, because he has spent all his life in learning how to die, and 
m preparing himself against death ; and he that stands always on 
his guard has no need to fear his enemies. He is not afraid of 
death, because the whole employment of his hfe has been to seek 
after those that might assist and stand by him at this hour, that is, 
virtue and good works. He is not afraid of death, because the 
many services he has done his judge will make him kind and 
favorable at that time. He is not, in fine, afraid of death, because 
death is no death, but only a slumber to a just man, it is no 
death, it is but a change ; it is no death, it is but the last day of 
his toils and labors ; it is no death, but only the way that leads 
to life, and the step by which he must mount to immortality ; for 
he knows that when death has passed through the veins of life, it 
loses the bitterness it had before, and takes up the sweetness of 
life. 

9. Nor can any other of those accidents which usually happen 
at this time terrify him ; for he knows they are Aothing but child- 
bed pangs, which gave him birth to that eternity, that love of 
which has made him continually long for death, and suffer life 
with patience. He is not frightened with the remembrance of 
his sins, because he has Jesus Christ for his Redeemer, whom he 
has always been acceptable to ; nor does the rigor of God's judg- 
ments dishearten him, because his Redeemer is his advocate ; 
neither does he shrink at the sight of the devils, because Jesus 
Christ is his Captain ; nor can the horror of the grave make any 
impression upon him, because he knows " that he must sow a 
fleshly and corruptible body in the earth, that it may afterwards 
spring up incorruptible and spiritual ;" 1 Cor. xiii. 44. If it be 
true that the end crowns the work; and if, as Seneca says, "we 
must judge of all the rest by the last day, and, accordingly, pass 
sentence on the whole hfe past, because all that is past is con- 
demned or justified by it" (Senec. Ep. 12); and if the death of 
good men be so peaceable and quiet, and that of the wicked, on 
the contrary, so disturbed and painful, what need have we of any 
other motive, than barely this difference, which is between the 
death of the one and of the other, make us resolve against a bad 
life, and to commence a good one? 

10. Where is the benefit of all these pleasures, all this pros- 
perity, and all these riches, all the titles and honors in the world, 
if, after all, I should be plunged headlong into hell fire ? And, on 
the other side, what hurt can all the imseries of this life do me, 
if, by means of them, I can make a happy end, and bring with 
me the pledges of eternal glory ? Let the wicked man manage 

20 R 



194 THE sinner's guide. 

his point in the world with as much cunning as he pleases, what 
will he get by all his craft, but just to know how to acquire such 
things as will serve to make him more proud, more vain, more 
sensual, more able to sin, more unable to do good, and to make 
death so much the more bitter and unwelcome, as life was the 
more pleasant and delightful ? If there is any sense and wit in the 
world, certainly there is none greater than to know how to order 
life well against this last hour, since a wise man's chief business 
is to understand what means are the most proper for him to use, 
in order to arrive at his end. If, therefore, we look on him as a 
skilful physician, who knows what remedies to prescribe for the 
recovery of health, which is the end of his science, we must of 
necessity think him truly wise, who knows how to govern his life, 
in order to death; that is, in order to the making up of his 
accounts well, when death, to which he is to direct all his life, 
shall come. 

§ II. The foregoing Section proved hy some Examples. — 11. 
For the better explaining and confirming of what I have said, and 
to give the reader a little spiritual recreation, I think fit to add 
here a few famous examples of the glorious death of some saints, 
taken out of the holy pope Gregory's Book of Dialogues, (Greg. 
L. 4. Dial. c. 13), by which we may plainly perceive how 
pleasant and how happy a thing death is to the just. If I enlarge 
a little on this point, I shall not think my time ill spent, because 
the saint, at the same time that he relates these passages, gives a 
great deal of wholesome advice and instruction. 

12. " He tells us, that, during the time the Goths were in 
Italy, there was a certain lady called Gala, of very considerable 
quality in Rome, daughter of one Symmachus, a consul. She 
w^as married very young, and became both wife and widow in 
one year. She had all the invitations imaginable from the world, 
her youth, and her fortune, to the taking of a second husband, 
but she chose to be the spouse of Christ, and to celebrate a 
marriage with him, that begins with sorrow, but ends with joy, 
rather than with the world, where it begins with joy, but ends 
in sorrow, because one of the two must unavoidably see the death 
of the other. This lady was of a warm constitution, and, there- 
fore, the physicians told her that if she did not marry again, she 
would certainly have a beard like a man, which, accordingly, 
happened. - Yet the holy woman, charmed with the inward 
beauty of her new bridegroom, was not troubled at her outward 
deformity, well knowing it would not be offensive to her 
heavenly spouse. Therefore, laying aside her worldly dress, she 
gave herself entirely up to the service of God, and entered into 
a monastery, near St. Peter's church, where she Hved for 
several years in great simplicity of heart, and in the frequent 



THE sinner's guide. 195 

exercise of prayer and charity to the poor. The Almighty 
being resolved at length, to reward the labors of his servant 
with eternal glory, she was troubled with a cancer in the breast, 
which grew to such a height that she was forced to keep her 
bed, where, as she lay, she had always two lamps burning by 
her, being so great a lover of light, as to have a horror, not 
only of spiritual but also corporal darkness. Finding herself one 
night very much out of order, she saw the blessed Apostle St. 
Peter standing between the two lamps : not at all disturbed at 
the vision, nay, her love on the contrary emboldening and en- 
couraging her, she, with a deal of cheerfulness and joy, asked 
him, — Great apostle, are my sins pardoned me yet ? To which 
he answered, with a smiling countenance, bowing down his head, 
Yes, they are pardoned you — come along with me. But the holy 
woman, having contracted a strict tie of friendship with another 
rehgious woman of the same monastery, called Benedicta, 
replied immediately, I beg that sister Benedicta may go along 
with me ; the apostle told her she was not to come yet, but that 
another sister whom he named, should bear her company, and 
that sister Benedicta should follow her within thirty days. After 
which he vanished, and the sick lady, sending for the prioress, 
gave her an account of all that happened, and both she and the 
other, whom St. Peter named, died within three days after, and 
at the end of thirty days, the other she had asked for. The 
memory of this passage is still preserved in that monastery, and 
the younger religious women, who received it from their mothers, 
recount it with as much fervor and devotion as if they them- 
selves had been eye-witness to it." This is St. Gregory's own 
relation; the reader may observe how glorious an end this 
was. 

13. After this the saint gives us an account of another ex- 
ample, no less wonderful (chap. 14) : " There was a certain man, 
says he, at Rome, called Servulus, very poor as to the world, 
but very rich in merits. His usual station was under a porch 
before St. Clement's church, where he begged, being so crippled 
by the palsy that he could not rise, nor sit in his bed, nor so 
much as lift his hand to his mouth, or turn from one side to the 
other. His mother and brother always kept him company and 
assisted him, and all the alms he could conveniently spare he 
desired his mother or his brother to distribute among the poor. 
He could not read, yet he bought some books of Scripture, and 
when any devout persons came to see him, would desire them to 
read to him ; by this means he got some insight into holy writ. 
Besides, he always used to bless God in the midst of his torments, 
and to employ himself day and night in singing of hymns. But 
the time drawmg nigh when the Lord intended to reward his 



196 THE sinner's guide. 

great patience, the holy man fell extreme sick, and when he per- 
ceived he was just going out of the world, he called together all the 
strangers thereabout, desiring them to join with him in praising 
God for the hopes he had given him of his being at the end of his 
labors. 

14. " But as he was singing amongst the rest, he interrupted 
them on a sudden, crying out with a loud voice, Silence ! do 
you not hear the songs and hymns of praises and thanksgiving 
which fill the heavens? And listening thus with the ear of his 
heart to the voices he heard within himself, he died. As soon as 
he had given up the ghost, such an extraordinary fragrancy was 
smelt all over the place, that all those present were delighted with 
its sweetness, by which they understood he really heard the songs 
of praise and joy with which he was received into heaven. A reli- 
gious man of our convent, who is still living, and who was present 
when this happened, often, with tears, tells me, that those who 
were there when he died never lost the sweet smell till the body 
was buried." 

15. I will add another memorable example out of the same 
saint, where he gives a faithful testimony, as being himself 
nearly concerned in it (chap. 16) ; " My father (says he) had 
three sisters, who all consecrated their virginity to God ; the 
eldest was called Tarsilla, the second Gordiana, the youngest 
Emiliana. They all three offered themselves to God at the 
same time, with an equal fervor, devotion and resignation, 
living together in their own house under the religious observance 
of a very rigorous rule. After they had lived thus for a very 
considerable time, Tarsilla and Emiliana began to increase every 
day more and more in the love of their Creator, and arrived to 
such a degree, that, though their bodies remained on earth, their 
souls were continually conversant in heaven. But Gordiana, on 
the contrary, growing every day more and more cold in her 
affection for God, was proportionably inflamed with the love of 
the world. All this while Tarsilla used frequently to tell her 
sister Emihana, with a deal of sorrow, I see that our sister Gor- 
diana is not well pleased with our way of living; I perceive she 
is w^holly bent upon outward things, and that she observes not 
in her heart her religious vows. Whereupon the other two 
sisters made it their whole business to advise her, with all the 
sweetness and tenderness they could, to lay aside her light 
behaviour, and be modest and grave as became her habit. She 
received this admonition with a very serious countenance, but as 
soon as it was over, laid aside that counterfeit gravity. Thus she 
spent her time in idle discourse, delighting in the company of 
worldly women, nor could she endure to converse with any other. 
One nigiit, my great-grandfather Felix, who had been pope, ap- 



THE sinner's guide. 197 

peared to Tarsilla, who had made a much greater progress than 
her sisters in continual prayer, corporal austerities, and fasting, 
in modesty, in gravity, and in all kinds of piety, and, showing 
her a habitation of eternal brightness, said to her, ' Come hither 
to me, for I am to receive you into this habitation of light.' 
Within a few days after, Tarsilla fell sick of a burning fever, and 
was past all recovery ; and as it is customary for much company 
to visit a person of quality that lies a dying, to comfort the kin- 
dred of the party that is expiring, so that several persons of note 
were there, and amongst the rest my mother. Then the sick 
lady, lifting up her eyes towards heaven, saw her Saviour coming 
to her ; and, struck with admiration, began to cry out, ' Stand 
aside, for Jesus Christ is coming.' And having fixed her eyes 
steadfastly on her Saviour, whom she saw, she soon after breathed 
out her blessed soul; and immediately such a fragrancy was 
smelt by all there present, as sufficiently evinced that the Author 
of all sweetness had really been among them. When they un- 
covered her to wash her body, as is usually done with the dead, 
they found her knees and elbows as hard as a camel's, with con- 
tinual prostrating at her prayers ; so her dead flesh gave a testi- 
mony of the employment of her spirit during life. All this hap- 
pened before Christmas, and as soon as Christmas-day was over, 
Tarsilla appeared to her sister Emiliana in the night-time, and 
said to her, ' Come, my dear sister, let us keep the feast of the 
Epiphany together, since I have kept that of Christmas without 
you.' But Emiliana, being concerned at the danger her sister 
Gordiana would be exposed to if she were left alone, answered, 
' If I go along with you, to whose care shall I recommend our 
sister Gordiana?' Tarsilla, with a heavy coimtenance, replied, 
* Do you come with me ; as for Gordiana, she is reckoned amongst 
the people of the world.' Immediately after this vision, Emihana 
fell sick, and growing every hour worse and worse, died before 
the day her sister had named. Gordiana seeing herself now left 
alone, became more and more wicked every day, and by degrees 
quite losing the fear of God, and neglecting her modesty, her 
devotion, and the vows by which she had consecrated herself to 
God, went and married a man that had farmed her estate of her." 
This is all taken out of St. Gregory, who, by the examples of 
those of his own family and blood, shows us how happy and pros- 
perous the end of virtue is, and how sorrowful and mean that of 
Hght and inconstant persons. I will conclude with one example 
more on this subject, out of the same saint, which happened in his 
time, and which he delivers in this manner : — 

16. " About the time when I entered into a monastery, there 
was an ancient woman at Rome, called Redempta, who wore a 
religious habit, and lived just by our blessed Lady's. She had 

R2 



196 THE sinner's guide. 

been formerly under the • care of a certain holy virgin called Hi- 
rundina, who, they say, was in great esteem for her virtue, having 
led a solitary life on the Prenestin mountains. This same Re- 
dempta had two other young virgins, that came to her to be her 
disciples ; the name of one of them was Romula ; as for the other, 
who is still living, I know her by sight, but cannot tell her name. 
These three virgms lived a very poor but holy life, all in the same 
house. But Romula outstripped her other companion in all kinds 
of virtues and graces, as being a woman of wonderful patience, 
of most perfect obedience, of an extraordinary recollection, a 
very strict observer of silence, and very much given to prayer and 
contemplation. But sometimes those who appear perfect in the 
eyes of men are not without some imperfections before God, as 
we often see unskilful persons commend a statue, before it is 
finished, as a complete work, and yet the master, who knows 
there is much more to be done to it, does not lay it aside, because 
of their extolling it, nor neglect to finish it, because of their com- 
mendation. Almighty God dealt after the same manner with 
Romula, whom he thought fit to refine and perfect, by afflicting 
her severely with the palsy, which obliged her to keep her bed 
for several years without any use of her limbs. All her pains 
and sufferings could never move her to the least impatience, nay, 
on the contrary, the want of the use of her limbs made her in- 
crease more and more in virtue ; so that, the less able she was to 
do any thing else, the more she exercised herself in her devotions 
and prayers. At length she called her mother Redempta to her, 
who had brought up these two disciples of hers as if they had 
been her own children, and said to her, ' Come hither, my dear 
mother, come hither.' Redempta immediately went to her with 
her other disciple, according to the relation, which they have 
both of them since made to several person^, so that the thing is 
now become public, and I myself had an account of it at the time 
it happened. As they were sitting, about midnight, by her bed- 
side, there appeared a light from heaven on a sudden, which filled 
the whole chamber. The brightness of it was so great, that they 
were astonished at it. Afterwards they heard a noise, as if a 
great many persons were coming into the cell, so that the door 
cracked as if it was pressed by the throng. Then they heard 
many come in, but, through fear and the extraordinary brightness, 
could see nothing, for their hearts were no less damped with fear 
than their eyes were dazzled by the light. After this there fol- 
lowed a sweet smell, which comforted and refreshed them as much 
as the light had frightened them before. They being no longer 
able to bear with the extraordinary brightness of that light, the 
sick woman began to comfort her mistress, who sat there trem- 
bling and shaking, and said, ^ Be not afraid, my dear mother, for 



THE sinner's guide. 199 

I am not dying yet.* And as she often repeated these words, the 
light lessened by degrees, till it was quite gone ; but the sweet 
smell continued still for the space of three days as fresh as when 
they first smelled it. The third day being over, she called her mis- 
tress again, and desired the viaticum, that is, the blessed sacra- 
ment ; which, after she had received, Redempta and her other 
companion were no sooner gone from her bed-side, than they 
began to hear two choirs of musicians at the entrance of the door, 
which, as near as they could judge by their voices, consisted of 
men and women. The men sung psalms, and the women an- 
swered them. And whilst they were thus performing the rites of 
this celestial funeral, this holy soul, lea\-ing the prison of her body, 
began her journey heavenward, the divine music and fragrancy 
going away vnth. her, so that the higher she mounted, the less they 
were perceived here below, till such time as they w^ere both quite 
lost." Hitherto the words of St. Gregory. 

17. Many more examples might be brought to this purpose, but 
these will suffice to show us how quiet, how sweet, and how easy 
the death of the just generally is. For though such evident tokens 
as these are do not always appear, yet, inasmuch as they are all 
the children of God, and since death is the end of all their mis- 
eries, and the beginning of that happiness they expect to be re- 
warded with, they are always, in this extremity, strengthened and 
encouraged by the help of the Almighty's grace, and by the evi- 
dence their own good consciences give in favor of them. 
Thus the glorious St. Ambrose comforted himself on his death- 
bed, saying, " I have not lived so as to have any reason to be 
sorry, that I was ever born ; nor am I afraid to die, because I 
know I have a favorable Master ;" In vita D. Ambrosi. But if 
any man imagines these favors and graces are incredible, let him 
reflect on the incomprehensible immensity of God's goodness, the 
effect of which is to love, honor and favor the good, and he 
will acknowledge, that all I have here asserted is but little in 
comparison with what the thing itself is. For if the infinite 
goodness has stooped so low as to take our flesh, and to die on a 
cross for the salvation of man ; what greater matter is it to comfort 
and honor the good when they are dying, since their redemption 
has cost him so dear ? And what wonder is it, that he should be- 
stow such gi-aces on those persons when they are dying, whom he 
is to receive into his own house, and to make partakers of his glory 
when they are dead. 

§ III. The Conclusion of the Second Part. — 18. Those we 
have mentioned are the twelve privileges granted to virtue in this 
life, and are like the twelve fruits of that most beautiful tree St. 
John, in his Apocalypse, saw planted by a river-side, which 
brought forth twelve fruits every year, according to the number 



200 THE sinner's guide. 

of the months. For, next to the Son of God, what other tree 
could bear such fruit but virtue, which is the tree that brings 
forth fruits of Hfe and hoHness? And what fruits can be more 
precious than those we have here given an account of? What 
more dehcious fruit than the fatherly care and providence which 
God has over those that serve him ? What more pleasant than his 
divine grace, than the light of wisdom, the consolation of the 
Holy Ghost, the joy of a good conscience, the help of a secure 
confidence in him, the true liberty of the soul, the inward peace 
of the heart, the being heard by him in our prayers, the being 
consoled by him in our tribulations, the having of our temporal 
necessities supplied, and, in fine, the comfort of a sweet and quiet 
death at last ? Any one of these privileges is doubtless so great 
in itself, that, were a man but thoroughly acquainted with it, he 
would need no other motive to embrace virtue and make a change 
of life. This alone Avould sufficiently convince him of the truth 
of that saying of our Saviour, " That whosoever should leave the 
world for the love of him, should receive even in this life a hun- 
dred fold, and hereafter life everlasting" (Mark x. 29), as has been 
shown above. 

19. Consider what good this is we invite you to. Think 
whether you would have any cause to repent, should you quit all 
the things of the world for it. The only reason why it is not valued 
by the wicked is because they know not its value. Therefore, 
the Saviour of the world said, " That the kingdom of heaven 
was like a hidden treasure" (Matt. xiii. 44) ; for it is a real trea- 
sure, but hidden from others, not from the owner. The prophet 
understood the value of this treasure, when he said, " My secret 
is for myself, my secret is for myself;" Isa. xxiv. He did not 
much care whether others knew of his happiness. For this is not 
like other goods, which are not goods unless they are known ; be- 
cause, being in themselves no longer goods than whilst the opinion 
of the world makes them such, it is requisite the world should 
know them, or else they will never have so much as the name of 
goods. But this good on the contrary, makes him good and happy 
that possesses it ; and though none but himself know of it, yet he 
has as much true comfort and satisfaction with it, as if all the world 
knew it. 

20. But neither my tongue, nor all that has hitherto been said, 
is sufficient to unfold this secret ; because all that the tongue of 
man is able to express falls far short of what it truly is. The only 
key, therefore, to explain it, is the divine light, and the long ex- 
perience and use of virtue. Beg this light of our Lord, and you 
will soon find this treasure and God himself, in whom you will find 
all things ; and you will see with how much reason the prophet 
said, "Blessed is the people that have God for their Lord" 



THE sinner's guide. 201 

(Ps. cxliii.) ; for what can he want, that is in possession of this good ? 
We read in the first book of Kings, that Halcanah, Samuel's 
father, seeing his wife Anne troubled, because she had no chil- 
dren, said to her, " Anne, what makes you weep ? Why is your 
heart troubled ? Am I not worth to you more than ten children ?" 
1 Kings i. Now if a loving husband, who to-day is, and to-mor- 
row is not, be worth more to his wife than ten children, how 
much more must God be worth, do you think, to the soul that 
really possesses him ? Blind and senseless men I what is it you 
do ? What is it you are about ? What is it you seek after ? Why 
do you leave the fountain of paradise for the muddy lakes of this 
world ? Why do you not take the advice of the prophet along 
w^ith you, when he says, " Taste and see how sweet the Lord 
is ?" Ps. xxxiii. 8. Why will you not once at least try this food ? 
Why will you not taste this meat ? Do but believe what God has 
said, do but once begin, and you will find yourselves undeceived 
of all your errors as soon as ever you enter into this path, as soon 
as ever you take this business in hand. The serpent, Moses' 
rod was turned into, looked frightful at a distance, but, as soon 
as he touched it with his hand, became a harmless rod again ; Exod. 
\u. It was not without reason, that Solomon said, "It is dear, 
it is dear, says the buyer ; but when he has got the goods into his 
own hands he is glad of the bargain ;" Prov. xx. This happens 
every day to men in this sort of purchase, for they, through their 
w^ant of skill in spiritual affairs, are at first ignorant of the value 
of this commodity, and, therefore, think it is set at too great a 
price, because they are carnal. But when once they have tasted 
how sweet the Lord is, they are immediately pleased with their 
purchase, and confess a man can never give too much for so great 
a treasure. How glad was the man in the gospel, that he sold 
all his estate to purchase that piece of ground in which he found 
a treasure ! Matt. xiii. 24. Can the Christian, then, who has 
heard of the name of this good, not so much as try what it is ? 
It is strange, that if a merry companion should affirm to you, that 
a great treasure was hid in some part of your house, you would 
not fail to dig there to discover the truth, and yet, when you are 
assured by the infallible word of Almighty God himself, that you 
may find an inestimable treasure within your own breast, you have 
not the courage or will not take the pains to look for it. O that 
you did but know how much truer this news is, and how much 
greater this treasure ! O that you did but know with how little 
trouble you might find it ! O that you did but see, " How near 
the Lord is to those that call upon him, if they call upon him in 
truth !" Ps. cxliv. 19. How many men have there been in the 
world, who, by a true sorrow for their sins and begging pardon 
for them, have, in less than a week's time, discovered land, or 
26 



202 THE sinner's guide. 

rather have found out a new heaven and ^ new earth, and have 
begun to perceive the kingdom of God within themselves ! And 
what wonder is it, that the Lord, who has said, " In whatsoever 
hour the sinner shall be sorry for his sin, I will remember it no 
longer" (Luke xv.), should work such an effect as this is ? What 
wonder is it to see him do this, who scarce gave the prodigal son 
leave to make an end of the short prayer he had studied, before 
he fell about his neck, embraced, and received him with so much 
joy and welcome return? Return, therefore, to this tender 
father : rise a little in the morning, and continue for some days 
to beg and cry at the gates of his mercy, and assure yourself, that 
if you persevere with humility, he will answer you at last, and 
discover the hidden treasure of his love to you ; and after having 
had some proof of it, you will immediately cry out, vdth the spouse 
in the Canticles, " If a man should give all that he is worth for 
love alone, he would think what he has given as worth nothing ;" 
Cant. viii. 



THE 



SINNER^S GUIDE. 



BOOK I. 



PART THE THIRD. 



WHEREIN ARE ANSWERED ALL THOSE EXCUSES MEN GENERALLY 
MAKE FOR NOT FOLLOWING VIRTUE. 



CHAPTER I. 

Against the first Excuse of those who defer changing their ^ 
Lives, and advancing in Virtue, till another Time, 

1. There is no doubt, that what we have hitherto said should 
be more than enough for the obtaining the chief end we have pro- 
posed to ourselves, which is to excite men to a sincere love of 
virtue. Almighty God's assisting grace cooperating; but though 
all this be true, yet the mahce of man is not without its excuses 
and apparent reasons, either to defend or comfort itself when it 
does amiss. As Ecclesiasticus affirms in these words : " The sin- 
ner will avoid correction, and will find out some excuse, accord- 
ing to his own will;" Eccl. xxxii. 21. And Solomon says to the 
same purpose, " That he who has a mind to forsake his friend, is 
seeking out for occasions to do it" (Prov. xviii. 1) ; so the wicked 
that desire to separate themselves from God have always some ex- 
cuse or other ready. For some there are we see, that defer this 
business of salvation to another time ; others, again, defer it till 
their death ; others say they are afraid of setting on an under- 
taking so hard and laborious ; some again there are, that comfort 
themselves with the hope of God's mercy, whilst they persuade 
themselves, that without charity they may be saved by faith and 
hope; and others, in fine, enamored with the world, cannot 
quit the happmess they have in it, even for obtaining of that 
which God has promised them. These are the most frequent de- 
ceits and amusements the enemy of mankind makes use of to 

(203) 



204 THE sinner's guide. 

infatuate men, that he may keep them all their life-time under the 
slavery of sin, that death may surprise them in that miserable 
state. We shall now expose those frauds in this last part of the 
book, and first answer those who put off this grand concern till 
another time, which is their most frequent practice. 

2. Some, therefore, there are, who own all that has been said 
to be true, and that there is no way so secure as that of virtue, 
which they design to follow, though they cannot do it at present, 
but they shall have time enough hereafter, to do it better, and 
with more ease. St. Augustine tells us, it was thus he answered 
God before his conversion : " Stay but a little longer, O Lord ; 
just now, just now, I will leave the world ;" St. Aug. L. 8. Conf. 
c. 5. Thus the wicked deal continually with God, first appoint- 
ing one day, and then another, still shifting the time of their con- 
version. 

3. It will be no hard matter to prove, that this is a manifest 
artifice of the old serpent, who has been very well used to lying 
and deceiving of men ; and this once Inade out and granted, all 
the controversy ceases. For we are already convinced there is 
nothing in this world which every Christian ought to desire more 
than his salvation, and that for the obtaining it, a sincere conver- 
sion and a perfect amendment of life is absolutely necessary ; for 
without these there is not salvation to be expected. What we 
have, therefore, to do is, to see when this conversion ought to be. 
All the business at present is the appointing of the time ; as to the 
rest, it is what every body is agreed on. You say you will begin 
your conversion very shortly ; I say you are to begin it at this 
very moment. You say it will be easier to do it hereafter ; I say, 
it will be easier to do it now. Let us see which of the two is in 
the right. 

4. But before we speak of the easiness of conversion, I 
desire you will tell me, who is it that has given you security for 
an after conversion? How many do you think have been de- 
ceived by this hope ? St. Gregory tells us, " that God, who has 
promised to pardon a sinner if he does penance, has not promised 
that he shall live till to-morrow;" Homil. 12. in Evang. St. Csesa- 
rius has something to the same purpose : " Somebody perhaps will 
say. When I come to be old, then I will make use of the physic of 
penance. How can human weakness have the impudence to pre- 
sume so far of itself, when it has not so much as the promise of 
one day?" St. Caesar. Homil. 13. Tom. 2. Bibhoth. Patr. As for 
my part, I cannot but think that the number of those souls that 
have been lost by this means is infinite. It was thus the rich man 
in the gospel was damned for ever. St. Luke says of him, that 
seeing he had as good a crop one year as he could have desired, 
he began to consider with himself, and to say, " What shall I do 
because I have no room where to bestow my fruits ? And he said, 



THE sinner's guide. 205 

this will I do ; I will pull down my barns, and will build greater : 
and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and 
my goods. And I wall say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much 
goods laid up for many years, take thy rest, eat, drink, make good 
cheer." Luke xii. 17, 18, 19, 20. But, as this unfortunate wretch 
was computing what he was worth, he heard a voice which said 
to him, " Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee : 
and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ?" What 
greater folly then can there be, than for a man to dispose of 
hereafter, with as much authority as if he had time itself in his 
own hands, whereas there is none but God that can dispose of it ? 
St. John says of God, " He has the keys of death and life," to 
open and to shut them when and on w^hom he thought fit ; with 
what face, then, can a vile worm dare to usurp such a power ? 
This insolence alone deserves for its punishment never to have 
an opportunity of doing penance for the future, that so the fool 
may pay for his folly, in not taking his advantage of the time God 
gave him. 

5. And since the number of persons who meet with this kind 
of punishment is so great, it will be but prudent to learn to be 
wise at other men's expenses, and to let their misfortunes teach 
us how to secure ourselves pursuant to this w^holesome advice 
of Ecclesiasticus : " My son, defer not thy conversion to God, 
and do not put it off from day to day. For his wrath will come 
on a sudden, and will destroy thee in the day of his vengeance.'-' 
Eccius. V. 8, 9. 

§ I. — But after all, put the case that you shall live as long as 
you imagine ; whether do you think it will be easier to begin 
from this very moment to amend your life, or to defer it till another 
time? For the clearer understanding of this point, we will 
sum up, in short, the chief reasons which make a present conver- 
sion seem so difficult. The difficulty does not proceed from those 
obstacles which men fancy, but from the bad habit of their wicked 
lives past, which they had rather die than change. For this rea- 
son St. Jerome said, " That which makes the way of virtue so hard 
and narrow, is the long custom of sinning ; because custom, being 
a second nature, there is no overcoming it, without overcoming 
nature herself, which is the greatest victory a man can possibly 
gain;"Epist. 14. ad Celentian. And, therefore, St. Bernard tells 
us, "That when once any vice is well rooted by a custom of 
many years' standing, there is no overcoming it without a very 
extraordinary, nay, even miraculous assistance of the Ahnighty's;" 
St. Bern. c. 47. De Modo Bene Vivendi. So that a Christian 
ought, on this consideration, to be afraid of nothing more than a 
bad habit in any vice ; because vices, in some manner, claim pre- 
scription, as well as the affairs of the world ; and when once they 
have got so far as this, you will find it no easy matter to over- 

S 



206 THE sinner's guide. 

come them, unless, as St. Bernard says, " God assists you by his 
particular grace." 

7. Another cause of this difficulty is, the power of the devil, 
who has an absolute command over a soul in sin. He is the 
strong man in arms the gospel speaks of, that keeps all he has in 
his power with such care and security ; Luke xv. This difficulty 
also proceeds from the Almighty's withdrawing himself from the 
soul polluted w^th sin. For though he stands sentinel on the 
walls of Jerusalem, yet he retires still further from a soul in sin, 
as the number of its sins increases. And what miseries and 
afflictions a soul is oppressed with, on account of this separation, 
we may learn from God himself, who has declared by the mouth 
of one of his prophets, "Wo be to them, because they have 
departed from me;" Osee vii. 13. And in another chapter he 
says, "Wo be to them, whensoever I shall depart from them" 
(ch. ix. 12.), which is the second wo St. John speaks of in his 
Apocalypse, ch. xi. 

8. The last cause of this difficulty is the corruption of the fa- 
culties of our soul, which are very much impaired by sin, not, in- 
deed, in themselves, but in their operations and effects. For as 
vinegar corrupts and sours wine, as worms rot the fruit, and in 
fine, one contrary spoils another, just so is sin the greatest enemy 
the soul has, and the thing which is most directly opposite to her, 
spoils and ruins all her powers and faculties : for sin darkens the 
understanding, weakens the will, disorders the appetite, and makes 
the free-will more infirm and less able to govern itself, and the 
operations that belong to it, though it can never entirely lose 
either its being or its liberty. Now these faculties of the soul 
being the instruments our soul makes use of for the doing any 
good, and the wheels of the clock, which is a virtuous and regular 
life, if these wheels and instruments are out of order, what can be 
expected from them but disorder and trouble ? These, therefore, 
are the chief causes of this difficulty, and they all of them originally 
spring from sin, and increase in proportion to the crimes we commit. 

9. The case being thus, how can you possibly imagine that 
your conversion and the reformation of your life will be easier to 
you, when the continual increase of your sins shall have increased 
the occasion of these difficulties ? It is certain the greater the 
number your sins shall be, the less you will be disposed to leave 
them : nay, your deferring will but give the devil a greater power 
over you, and oblige God to withdraw himself so much the further 
from you. Hereafter your soul will be the more depraved of all 
its powers and faculties. Now, if this difficulty arise from these 
causes, what man of sound judgment will ever fancy that, when 
the causes of it increase on all sides, it will be less troublesome to 
remove them than when they are fewer ? 

10. For it is evident that, if you continue every day to commit 



THE sinner's guide. 207 

new sins, you will in time add other knots to those you were tied 
down by before : you will increase the chains that bound you, by 
adding other new ones to them, and make the weight you groaned 
under before much more heavy: hereafter the habit of sin will 
blind the understanding, make the will less able to do any thing 
that is good, strengthen the appetite in its desire of evil, and 
render the free-will more weak in defending itself. Since, there- 
fore, things stand thus, how can you persuade yourself you shall 
find less trouble in this business hereafter ? If you say, you can- 
not pass over this ford till it grows deeper, how will you be able 
to get over w^hen it has swelled into a rapid stream ? If you find 
it so hard a matter to pluck up the plants of your vices when they 
are but newly set, how much more troublesome will it be to re- 
move them when they shall have taken deep root? that is, if 
now, whilst your vices have but little force, you say you cannot 
overcome them, how shall you be able to get the better of them 
when they are more fixed and strengthened ? You have now per- 
haps a hundred vices to fight with, and some time hence you 
may have a thousand ; now perhaps you resist bad habits of a year 
or two standing ; hereafter perhaps they will be of ten. Who 
tells you, that you may vdth more ease carry your burden here- 
after, when you have added a deal more w^eight to it, since you 
are not able to carry it without stooping now ? How can you be 
so blind as not to see that all these are the artifices and deceits of 
a bad paymaster, who puts you off from time to time, because he 
has no mind to discharge the debt ? How can you choose but see 
that these are the impostures of the old serpent, who by his lies 
seduced our first parent, and is continually endeavoring to play the 
same trick on us ? 

11. If this be true, how can you imagine that these difficulties, 
which seem impossible to break through now, should become 
much easier when their strength and number is increased ? How 
can a man think, that the more his crimes are, the easier it will 
be to get a pardon ; or that the cure will be the easier, when the 
disease is grown more desperate ? Have you never read in Ec- 
clesiasticus, " that an old disease puzzles the physician, whereas 
that which is taken in the beginning is soon cured" ? Eccl. x. 11, 
12. This kind of cheat was discovered by an angel to one of the 
holy fathers of the desert, as we read in their lives ; for, taking 
him by the hand, he led him into a field, and there showed him a 
mcui that was gathering faggots : after he had made up a great 
bundle, he endeavored to carry it away on his shoulder, and 
finding it too heavy for him, he fell to cutting again, to make his 
bundle still bigger ; but perceiving himself less able to carry it 
now than he was before, he went on, nevertheless, a third time 
to increase his former bundle, imagining that adding more to it 
was the way to make it fighter. The holy man wondering at 



208 THE sinner's guide. 

what he saw, the angel told him that those men were guilty of no 
less folly, who, finding themselves unable to bear up under the 
weight of their sins, which press so heavily on them, yet increase 
\ their load every day, by heaping sin on sin, supposing they shall be 
better able to carry the load hereafter, when it shall be much bigger, 
though they cannot carry it now. 

12. Amongst all these things, which are such hinderance to 
our conversion, what shall I say of the force of ill custom in par- 
ticular, and of the power it has to keep us in our sins ? For it is 
certain, that as a man, when he is striking in a nail, drives it the 
farther every stroke he gives, and that the deeper it goes, the 
harder it is to be plucked out again ; in the same manner, every 
bad action we do is like a fresh stroke with a hammer, that 
drives our vices deeper into our souls, and by degrees fixes them 
so fast there, that it is as much as man can do to get them out again. 
This is the reason why so many persons, who spent their youth 
in debauchery and vice, are frequently subject to the same sinsf 
even in their old age, though their years and the weakness of 
nature itself have cast them off. So that, when nature is quite 
tired and worn out with sin, custom still runs in the same track, 
and makes this sort of men seek after pleasures, which they are 
out of all possibility of enjoying ; so tyrannical and arbitrary 
is the power which evil custom alone exercises over those that 
are carried away by it. For this reason, we read in the book of 
Job, " That the bones of a wicked man shall be filled with the 
sins of his youth, and that they shall sleep with him in the dust;" 
Job XX. 11. By this we may see that such kind of vices as these 
have no other end but death, the common end of all things ; nor 
do they end here, but continue for all eternity ; and, therefore it 
is said, they sleep with him in the dust. For an old custom, which 
is changed into nature, imprints the very inclinations to vice so 
deep into the bones and marrow, that, like a slow fever in a 
phthisical man, it sets the very bowels into a flame, and makes 
him quite despair of any ease or comfort. This is what our 
Saviour himself has taught us by his raising of Lazarus to life 
again, after he had been dead four days : it was with cries and a 
great many tears that he raised him, notwithstanding he had with 
much ease restored several dead to life before. This was to give 
us to understand, what a miraculous work it was for God to raise 
a man to life, that had been four days dead and almost corrupted ; 
that is, who had been a long time accustomed to sin, and habituated 
in it. For, according to St. Augustine's exposition, the first of 
these four days is the pleasure of the sin, the second is the consent 
given to it, the committing of it the third, and the fourth is the 
custom of sinning ; and he that has once arrived to this degree, is 
the Lazarus that has been four days dead, that cannot be restored 
to life again but by our Saviour's sighs and tears. 



• THE sinner's guide. 209 

13. This plainly demonstrates how difficult that man makes his 
conversion, who always puts it off from time to time, and how, 
the longer he defers, the more painful he makes it. It is, there- 
fore, a folly and deceit in those men w^ho say, it will be much easier 
for them to amend their lives hereafter, than it is at present. 

§ II. — 14. But let us put the case now, that all fall out as you 
imagine, and that your hopes meet with no disappointment : yet 
what will you say to all the time you lose before your conver- 
sion, in which you might merit such mighty treasures? What 
folly would it be, to speak according to the world, for a man, 
when the towii was taken by storm, and the soldiers plundering 
up and down, and loading themselves with wealth, to be playing 
in the market among the children : your folly is much greater ; for 
whilst the just are busying themselves on good works, that they 
may, by virtue of them, purchase the kingdom of heaven, you lose 
this opportunity, and spend your time in the follies and trifles of 
the world. 

15. And what will you say, not only to those goods you lose, 
but to the evils you commit in the mean time ? Is it not certain, 
as Saint Augustine says, " That a man ought not, for the world, 
to commit one venial sin?" Lib. 4. Samendaciud. c. 1. How can 
you then consent so easily to commit so many mortal during all 
this time, when you ought not to commit any one sin whatsoever, 
though it were for the salvation of a thousand worlds ? How 
can you dare to sin against and provoke him to wrath, at whose 
gates you must knock, at whose feet you are to fall, from whose 
hands you are to expect your eternal lot, whose mercy you pre- 
tend to obtain at last by your sighs and tears ? How can you 
dare, with so much treachery, to offend him whom you will one 
day stand so much in need of, and whom you must expect to find 
so much the less favorable to you, as you shall have offended him 
the more? Against such persons as these, St. Bernard reasons 
excellently well, when he says, " Tell me now, you who reckon 
so falsely, continuing still in your evil courses, whether you think 
that God will pardon you your sins or not. If you imagine he 
will not, what greater folly than to sin on without hopes of par- 
don ? And if you persuade yourself he is so good and merciful 
as to pardon you, notwithstanding you have so frequently offended 
him, tell me what greater ingratitude and malice can there be, 
than to make that the occasion of offending, which ought to excite 
you the more strongly to love him ?" How can a man answer 
this argument ? 

What will you say of the tears, the sins you now commit will 
cost you hereafter ? For if God should call and visit you here- 
after (and your condition will be very miserable if he does not), 
be assured that every mouthful you eat now will be more bitter to 
you than gall, that every sin you have committed will cost you 
27 S2 



210 THE sinner's guide. 

continual tears, and that you will, one day, wish you had suffered 
a thousand deaths rather than have offended so good a God. The 
time king David spent in unlawful pleasures was but short, and 
yet his grief and sorrow for it was such, that he himself tells us, 
*' Every night I will wash my bed, and water my couch with my 
tears ;" Ps. vi. 7. His tears flowed from him with such excess, 
that St. Jerome's translation, instead of saying, " I will wash my 
bed," renders it, " I will make my bed swim in my tears ;" to 
give us a lively representation of those streams that flowed from 
his eyes, because he had not observed the law of God. Why then 
will you spend your time in sowing such seed as can never bring 
you any other fruit but tears ? 

16. You ought further to consider, that you do not only sow 
tears for the future, but raise difficulties to obstruct a good life, 
through the settled habit of living ill. For as a lingering dis- 
temper is scarce ever so perfectly cured, but that it leaves some 
of its ill symptoms behind, even so does the habit of sin, which is 
of long continuance, weaken a man on that side, and expose him 
the more to the attacks of his mortal enemy. Moses made the 
children of Israel drink the very ashes of the calf they had adored, 
in punishment of their crime; Exod. xxxii. 20. The ordinary 
punishment Almighty God inflicts for some kind of sins is, to per- 
mit them, by a just judgment, to remain in our very bones, as if 
we had drank them up, and to let them become our executioners 
which were the idols we adored before. 

17. Add to all this, the bad choice and distribution you make 
in setting apart old age to do penance, and suffering the prime 
and flower of your years to slip away, without making any ad- 
vantage of it. What folly would it be for a man, who has many 
beasts of burthen, and several loads to put on them, to lay all on 
the weakest beast and to let the rest go light ? Such is the folly 
of those who leave the whole burthen of penance for their old 
age to carry, and let their youth and vigorous days pass away 
without laying any weight on them ; whereas youth is fitter to 
bear this load than old age, w^hich is scarce able to support itself. 
It was a good saying of the great philosopher Seneca, "That 
whoever defers his being virtuous till he comes to be old, does 
as good as tell us, he will spend no other time on virtue but that 
which is good for nothing else ;" Sen. hb. de Brevitate vitse, c. 15. 
Consider, further, how great this satisfaction is, which the divine 
Majesty requires for those offences committed against him. This 
satisfaction is so great, as St. John Climachus tells us, " That 
man can scarce satisfy to-day for the sins of to-day, and so balance 
his daily account." Why then will you be all your life-time in- 
creasing your debts, and defer the payment of them to old age, 
which will have enough to do to wipe off its own scores ? This 
crime is so heinous, that St. Gregory looks on it as a sort of trea- 



THE sinner's guide. 211 

son. That man (says he) comes very short of the allegiance he 
owes to God, who expects old age to do penance in. Nay, he has 
much reason to fear his falling into the hands of justice, for having 
presumed so rashly on mercy." Grad. 5. 

§ III. — 18. But let us put the case now, that nothing of 
what w^e have said happens ; yet, if there be any honesty, and 
reason or justice in the world, is not the greatness of the benefits 
you have received, and of the glory you have a promise of, a suf- 
ficient motive to make you less sparing of the time you spend in 
the service of him who has been so liberal in rewarding you ? It 
was with a deal of reason Ecclesiasticus said : " Let nothing hin- 
der you from praying at all times, and be not afraid of doing jus- 
tice even unto death, because the reward which God gives remains 
forever ;" Eccl. xviii. 22. If, therefore, the continuance of the re- 
ward be so long, why should you desire your service to end so soon ? 
If the reward is to remain as long as God shall remain in heaven, 
why should not your service continue as long as you live on earth ? 
Your whole life, at best, is but one small point, and yet you will cut 
off the two thirds of it, and leave God no more than a mere puff or 
breath. 

19. Besides all this, if you have any hopes of your salvation, 
you are to suppose that God has predestinated you from all eter- 
nity for this salvation. If, then, God has been so forward as to 
love you from all eternity, to make you a Christian, to adopt you 
for one of his children, and to make you an heir of his kingdom, 
how can you neglect to love him till the end of your days, who has 
loved you from all eternity, which has no beginning ? How can 
you resolve to do him so little service, who has resolved to confer 
so many favors on you ? It is but reasonable that, since the re- 
ward is to last forever, the service should do so too, if it be pos- 
sible. But since it can last no longer than life, why will you, out 
of so short a space, take so much time which would have been 
spent in God's service, leaving him so little, and that the worst 
part of it. For, as Seneca says, " The little that is left at the 
bottom of a vessel is nothing but dregs." Thus you see how small 
a share you have for God : " Cursed be the deceitful man," 
s^ys God to his prophet Malachy, " who has a male in his flock, 
and yet sacrifices an infirm creature to me ; because I am a great 
King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is terrible amongst 
the nations ;" Mai. i. 14. As if he had said more plainly. There 
are none but great services due to so great a Lord as I am, and it 
is an affront to such a majesty to offer it the refuse of any thing. 
Why, therefore, do you reserve the better and more beautiful part 
of your life for the service of the devil, and are willing to give 
God no other part but what the world will not accept of? God 
has said, " There shall not be in your house a greater measure 
and a less, but your weight shall be true and just ;" Deut. xxv. 



212 THE sinner's guide. 

14, 15. And yet, in contradiction to this law, you will keep two 
unequal measures, a great one for the devil, whom you treat as your 
friend, and another very little one for God, whom you deal with as 
an enemy. 

20. Above all this, I earnestly desire, that if these benefits can- 
not move, you would at least reflect on the inestimable favor the 
eternal Father has conferred on you, in giving you his only be- 
gotten Son to redeem your soul, by laying down that life which 
was worth infinitely more than all the lives of men and angels 
together ; so that, had you all those lives in yourself, and an in- 
finite number more, you ought to give them all to him that has 
given his life ; and yet all this would be too small a return for it. 
On what account, with what face, and by what privilege, can you 
refuse him, who has laid down so precious a life for you, such a 
poor and miserable one as yours is ? What is worse, you take 
away the best and most noble part of it, and leave him nothing but 
the lees and dregs. 

21. We will conclude this chapter as Solomon ends his Eccle- 
siastes, where he exhorts man to be mindful of his Creator in his 
youth, and not to put off a business of such concern till old age 
comes on, which is unfit for any kind of corporal labors ; and 
whose infirmities and inabilities he describes under obscure and 
wonderful parables. " Remember," says he, " thy Creator in 
the days of thy youth, before the time of affliction comes and the 
years approach, of which thou mayst say, they do not please me ; 
before the sun and light, with the moon and stars, grow dark, 
when the guards of the house," that is to say, the hand, " shall 
tremble ; when the stoutest persons shall quake," that is to say, 
the legs, w^hich bore all the weight of this building ; " when there 
shall be but few teeth left, and those quite useless; and when 
those faculties, which see through the window^s of the eyes, shall 
grow dark: when they shall shut the gates in the street," because 
the organs and instruments of all the other senses will fail too ; 
" and when a man shall awake at the crowing of the cock," by 
reason of the little sleep men generally take when they are at 
this age ; " when all the daughters of music shall become deaf/' 
because all the vessels, which form the voice, shrink up and grow 
narrow ; " when there is no strength left for to go upright, nor to 
walk in a rugged or slippery way ;" when, on the contrary, " a 
man is apt to stumble upon smooth and even ground ; when the 
almond tree shall be blossomed," that is, when the head shall be 
covered vrith gray hairs ; " when there shall be nobody left to 
carry the burden, be it ever so light and easy ; when man shall be 
deprived of all things," because the faculties of the soul, where 
the seat of the appetites is, grow weaker and weaker every day ; 
for man shall go to the house of his eternity," which is the grave, 
"and bis friends shall go up and down in the streets to bewail 



THE sinner's guide. 213 

him ; when," in fine, " The. dust shall return to its earth, from 
whence it came, and the spirit shall go towards God that gave it ;" 
Eccl. xii. 8. Thus far Solomon. 

22. Follow, therefore, this advice: remember your Creator 
whilst you are yet young, and do not put off doing penance to 
those heavy years w^hen nature itself fails, and the vigor of all the 
senses w^eakens and decays, and man is fitter to supply the defects 
of nature, by making much of himself, than to embrace the toils 
and hardships of penance, when virtue seems rather a necessity 
than a choice, and when vices gain a reputation by us, because 
they quit us sooner than w^e quit them ; though, for the most part, 
we are the same when we grow old as we w^ere when young, 
according to the saying of Ecclesiasticus : " How shall you find 
in your old age what you never laid up in your youth ?" Eccl. 
XXV. 5. 

23. This is the wholesome advice we have from Solomon ; and 
Ecclesiasticus gives us the same, when he says, " You shall con- 
fess and praise God whilst you are alive ; whilst you are alive 
and in good health you shall praise God, and you shall be glori- 
fied in his mercies;" Eccl. xvii. 27. It is a very mysterious thing, 
that all of the sick that were near the pool, he who first went in 
after the motion of the waters, found a most certain cure (John v. 4), 
to give us to understand, that all our salvation depends on our 
ready compliance with and submission to the Almighty's inward 
motions. Run, therefore, and make all the haste you can ; " And 
if," as the prophet says, "you shall hear the voice of God to-day" 
(Ps. xciv. 8), do not put off your answer till to-morrow, but begin 
from this very moment the work of your salvation, which you 
will find so much easier to finish, as you shall begin the sooner. 



CHAPTER II. 

Against those Persons who defer their Penance to the Hour of 

Death. 

1. There is another sort of men, who put off their penance to 
the hour of their death ; but what we have said, in the foregoing 
chapter, might serve to make them ashamed of their folly. For 
if it be so dangerous to defer it but for a short time, what must be 
the consequence of deferring it till the very moment that man is 
going to leave the world ? This being so universal an error, and 
many souls being lost by it, it is necessary we should speak of it 
in a more particular manner. And though it is to be feared, that 
the treating of this subject may be an occasion to some weak 



214 THE sinner's guide. 

persons of despair and discouragement, yet the consequence is 
much worse if men should remain ignorant of the danger they 
expose themselves to, by deferring their conversion to the hour 
of their death : so that, if we weigh these two dangers together, 
we shall find the latter far the greater, because there are many 
more souls, which perish through an indiscreet confidence than 
an immoderate fear. It is, therefore, requisite, that we, who are 
placed on Ezechiel's watch-tower, should forewarn them of these 
dangers, that so they, w^ho will follow our advice, may not be 
drawn headlong into this error, and that they, who are resolved 
to destroy themselves, may not lay their blood at our doors. But 
because all the light and truth we are capable of in this life can 
be no other than what we receive from the Scripture, the holy 
fathers and doctors, let us see what they say on this point, for I 
do not think that any man w^ill be so rash as to prefer his opinion 
before theirs. To proceed, then, in this method, we will first de- 
liver what the saints of ancient times, and then what the Scripture 
teaches on this subject. 

§ I. The Opinions of the ancient Fathers concerning Death-bed 
Repentance. — 2. Before we enter into this dispute, w^e must pre- 
suppose, what St. Augustine and all other doctors say, that as true 
penance is the work of God, so it is in its power to inspire it when- 
ever he pleases ; and, therefore, whensoever we are touched with 
a true sorrow for our sins, it has force and power enough for the 
working out of salvation, though we were lying on our death-bed. 
But to let you see how rarely we have any examples hereof, there 
is no need of believing either yourself or me ; do but believe the 
saints, for it is by their mouths that the Holy Ghost has spoken, 
and it is highly reasonable w^e should give credit to their works and 
testimony. In the first place, then, hear what St. Augustine says 
to this purpose, in his Book of True and False Penance : " Let no 
one defer his doing penance till such time as he is able to sin no 
longer, because God requires we should perform this action wdth 
cheerfulness and freedom, not vnth restraint and of necessity ; and, 
therefore, he that lets his sins leave him before he will get rid of 
them, does not seem to leave them so much out of choice and freely, 
as out of mere necessity. This is the reason why those persons, 
w^ho would not return to God when they had the power of doing 
it, and yet confess their sins w^hen they are out of the capacity of 
sinning any more, will not so easily obtain their desires as they 
imagine they shall." Aug. de falsa ei vera Penit. And a little 
lower, speaking of the nature of this conversion, he says, " That 
man is truly converted to God, that returns to him with his whole 
heart, who is not only afraid of punishment, but uses his utmost 
endeavors to obtain Almighty God's graces and favors. Should 
any one, though at the end of his life, be converted to God after 
this manner, we should have no reason to despair of his pardon. 



1 



THE sinner's guide* 215 

But because we scarce ever, or at least but very seldom, meet 
with such a perfect conversion as this is in these days, we have a 
deal of reason to fear for him, who stays so long before he re- 
turns to God ; because it is hard for a man to make true satisfac- 
tion, when he finds himself overcharged with the pains his sick- 
ness put him to, and frighted with the apprehension of punish- 
ment ; and this especially if he sees his friends before him, for 
whom he has such ardent love, and reflects on the world, which 
he is just going to be taken out of. Now, because there are 
many things, which hinder a man from doing penance at this time, 
it is certain there can be nothing more dangerous, nor which ex- 
poses him more to ruin, than his deferring till death the seeking 
of proper remedies to cure him. What is more yet, I make bold 
to say, that in case such a man should obtain pardon for his sins, 
he would not, therefore, be acquitted from the punishment due to 
them, for he must be purged and cleansed first by the fire of pur- 
gatory, for having reserved the fruits of satisfaction for the next 
world ; and though this fire is not to last forever, as that of hell 
is, it is, notwithstanding, extremely great, and far beyond all the 
torments one can possibly suffer in this world, since never did man 
endure so much in this life ; no, not even the martyrs themselves, 
notwithstanding the exquisite pains they have undergone ; nor any 
criminals whatsoever, that have been put to the greatest tortures, 
that either human wit or cruelty could invent. Let him, therefore, 
omit no opportunity of returning from this wicked life, that he 
may, by this means, escape those dreadful torments, which he 
must otherwise expect to suffer after death." 

3. These are St. Augustine's own words, by which you may 
see what danger that man exposes himself to, who defers delib- 
erately doing penance till his dying day. 

4. St. Ambrose also, in his book of Penance, which some at- 
tribute to St. Augustine, is very copious on this matter, and 
amongst many other things has these words : " If any man desire 
the sacrament of penance as he lies on his death-bed, and re- 
ceives it, and dies, I own we do not refuse him what he asks, 
but I dare not give you any assurance of his going the right way. 
I tell you again, it is more than I dare aflSrm, nor will I give you 
any promise of it, because I will not deceive you. Will you 
then have this doubt cleared ? Do you desire to avoid such an 
uncertainty as this is ? Do penance for your sins whilst you are 
in good health and able to do it, and then I ^vill give you my 
word for it, that you are in a good way, because you have done 
penance for your sins when you might have increased the num- 
ber and quality of them : but if, on the contrary, you defer your 
penance till such time as you are able to sin no longer, it is not 
you that leave your sins, but your sins leave you." St. Aug. 50. 
Horn. 4. 52. 



216 THE sinner's guide. 

5. St. Isidore has almost the same thing, though in other 
words : " Let that man, that has a mind at his death to be cer- 
tain of having his sins pardoned him, do penance for them whilst 
he is well and able ; let him bewail and deplore his offences ; but 
if, having lived wickedly all his life-time, he expects to obtain his 
pardon when he is dying, he runs a great hazard; because, though 
he is not sure he shall be damned, he has a deal of reason to doubt 
of his being saved;" St. Isid. L. 2. sent. c. 13. 

6. These authorities of the saints are sufficient subjects of our 
fear; but what Eusebius tells us St. Jerome, his master, said, a 
little before he died, as he lay prostrate on the ground and cov- 
ered with sackcloth, will put us into greater fright and apprehen- 
sion. But because it is so terrible that I dare not relate it with 
all the rigor and severity that the saint spoke it, for fear of giving 
those souls that are but weak an occasion of despair, I will refer 
such as desire to read it to an epistle of Eusebius's to Damascus, 
a bishop, on the death of this glorious doctor : they will find it in 
the fourth volume of the saint's works. After many other things 
he says, " He that has persevered all his life-time in his sin, may 
say. When I am ready to die, I will do penance and be converted. 
O, what a melancholy comfort is this ! For he that has spent his 
whole life wickedly, without so much as ever thinking of pen- 
ance, unless, as it were, in a dream, will be very uncertain of its 
success at that time. For being at this time entangled with 
worldly affairs, afflicted with the pains of his distemper, and 
distracted with the thought of his friends he must part with, and 
with the love he has for the goods of this life, which he has no 
hopes to enjoy any longer, how is it possible he should be in a 
disposition to raise up his heart towards God, and to true penance, 
when he is surrounded by so many afflictions and troubles ? It is 
what he never did as long as he had any hopes of living, nor 
would he do it now, if he thought he should recover again. Be- 
sides, what kind of penance must that be which a man performs 
when life itself is going to leave him? I know some of the rich 
men of this world, who have recovered the health of their bodies 
after dangerous sicknesses, but have grown worse and worse in 
that of their souls. I believe, therefore, and am of opinion (for it 
is what I have had sufficient experience of), that for a man that 
has always led a vicious life, that has never been afraid of com- 
mitting any sin whatever, and that has always been a slave to 
pride and vanity ; after all this to make a happy end, it is no less 
than an extraordinary miracle." You may see, by these words 
of Eusebius, how this holy doctor feared and doubted of the 
penance which a man, that had never done any all his hfe-time 
before, began to do on his death-bed. 

7. Nor was St. Gregory less afraid of what generally happens 
in this conjuncture ; for writing on these words of Job, " What 



THE sinner's guide. _ 217 

hope can the hypocrite have, if he takes away what belongs to 
another? Will God hear his cry when tribulation shall come 
upon him ?" Job xxvii. 8, 9. He speaks thus : " If a man does 
not hear God's voice when he is in prosperity, God will not hear 
him in the time of his adversity. For it is written, " The prayer 
of that man that turns away his ear from hearing of the law, 
shall be cursed ;" Prov. xxviii. 9. Holy Job, considering how all 
those that neglect now to do good, when they are ready to die, 
turn themselves towards God, and beg pardon of him for their 
crimes, says, " What ! will God hear the cries of such a people ?" 
Which words of his come very near those of our Saviour, The 
foolish virgins are come at last, and cry out, ' Lord, Lord, open 
to us' (Matt. XXV. 11), but immediately answer was given, 
' Verily, I say unto you, I know you not ;' ver. 12. Because, the 
greater mercy God shows now, the greater severity he will exer- 
cise then ; and the rigor with which he will punish then, will 
be so much the heavier, as his goodness is the sweeter and more 
merciful now." Thus much St. Gregory. And Hugh of St. 
Victor shows us he is of the same opinion with these saints, when 
he tells us, in his second Book of the Sacraments, " It is very 
hard for that penance to be true which comes late, and we have 
a deal of reason to suspect it when it is forced ;" Lib. 2. De 
Sacr. Part 14. c. 5. Every man can witness for himself, that he 
has no desire to do that which is out of his power to do ; for we 
may easily judge of the will by the power ; so that, if you do not 
do penance when you are able, it is a sign you have no mind to 
do it. 

8. This is the opinion of the master of the Sentences, when he 
says, " Since true penance is the work of God, he can inspire it 
when he shall think fit, and reward, out of his mercy, those whom 
he might have condemned by his justice. But because there are 
many things at that time which divert men from this business, it 
is very dangerous, nay, even sinful, to defer the applying of the 
remedy of penance till the very utmost extremity. Nevertheless, 
it is an extraordinary grace of God to inspire a man with these 
dispositions as he lies on his death-bed, if there be any so inspired." 
Lib. 4. dist. 20. Observe how dreadful these words are. What 
madness is it, then, to expose the greatest treasure to the most im- 
minent dangers ? Is there any thing in the world of greater con- 
sequence to you than your salvation ? What madness, then, to 
hazard so precious a jewel ! 

9. This is the sentiment of all these great doctors ; by which 
you may judge what madness it is to be so secure, where so many 
skilful pilots have shown so much concern. The art of dying well 
ought to be the study of our whole life ; for, at the hour of death, 
we have so much to do to die, that we have scarce any time to 
learn to die well. 

28 T 



218 THE sinner's guide. 

§ II. The Opinions of the Schoolmen on the same Matter. — 
10. For the further confirmation of this truth, we must see what 
have been the opinions of the schoohnen on this matter. But, 
above all the rest, Scotus, in his fourth Book of Sentences, treats 
this question the most to our present purpose, which he con- 
cludes thus : " The great difficulty a man has to do penance at 
the hour of death, makes the penance he does then to be hardly a 
true penance ;" Scot. 9. 4. dist. 20. art. 1. This he proves by 
four reasons. 

11. The first is, the pains his distemper brings on, and the pre- 
sence of death to him, are obstacles to the lifting up his heart to 
God, and to the exercising himself in the duties and obhgations of 
sincere penance. To make this the plainer, you are to understand, 
that all the passions of our soul have a deal of force to draw a 
man's reason and free-will which way they please. And, accord- 
ing to the maxims of the philosophers, the passions that excite 
sorrow are much stronger than those that are the causes of joy ; 
so that the passions and affections of a man ready to die are 
strongest ; because, as Aristotle says, " Death is of all terrible 
things the most terrible," by reason of the pains and torments the 
body is in, of the disquiets and troubles of the soul, which are 
numerous, of the grief and sorrow which the thoughts of leaving 
children, wife and the world then rack a man with. Now, whilst 
the passions are so strong and turbulent, where must the dying 
man's thoughts and reasons be, but where such violent griefs and 
passions as these convey them ? 

12. We see by experience, that even a virtuous man, if he be 
but troubled with a violent fit of the cholic, or with any other 
sharp pain whatever, whilst he is in this condition, can scarce 
have his thoughts fixed entirely on God, but, generally speaking, 
lets them go wheresoever his pains carry them. If it be thus 
with a good and just man, what will become of him that never 
knew what it was to think of God, and who, being always ac- 
customed to love his body better than his soul, is the more easily 
inclined to run to his greater friend than to his less, for help and 
Succor, when he is in any danger? One of those four things, 
which St. Bernard says are impediments to contemplation, is the 
indisposition of the body, because the soul is at that time so taken 
up with the thoughts of what the flesh suffers, that she can hardly 
think of any thing else : Serm. 5. de Assum. If this be true, what 
folly is it to expect the greatest indisposition of the body, in order 
to treat of the greatest affairs of the soul ? 

13. I knew a person myself, who, being ready to die, and 
advised to prepare himself as well as he could for death, was so 
surprised and troubled at the nearness of it, that all his business 
was to desire, with the more eagerness and solicitude, such reme- 
dies as were the most proper for keeping off the stroke, if it were 



THE sinner's guide. 219 

possible ; as if he had imagined he could have pushed death 
away with his hands, when it was so near him. A priest that 
was by, seeing him so forgetful of what ought to have been 
at that time his chief concern, advised him to lay aside those 
cares and soHcitudes, and to call on God. The sick man look- 
ing on this good advice as troublesome, answered the priest after 
such a manner as least of all became one in that condition, and 
at such a time ; immediately after which he died ; and yet this 
same person had passed for a man of virtue all his lifetime. 
From hence you may see how troublesome the nearness of death 
will be to men who have loved this life too well, since it has been 
so unwelcome to those who, whilst they Hved, seemed not to have 
any extraordinary affection for it. 

14. I heard of another person, who being very ill, and imagin- 
ing he had not long to live, desired to entertain himself before he 
died with none but God, and prevent his Judge by the fervor of his 
devotion ; but the violent and continual pain he was in, gave him 
no kind of ease or respite for the accomplishing his desire. What 
man, then, will be so mad as to defer the reform of his whole life, 
till such a time, when he shall find himself so ill disposed for this 
business ? 

15. The second reason this doctor brings is, that true penance 
ought to be voluntary, that is, to proceed from a free notion of 
the wall, and not to be done purely out of necessity. And, 
therefore, St. Augustine says, " That a man should not only fear 
his Judge, but love him too, and do what he has to do freely and 
willingly, not out of necessity ;" De Civit. Dei. L. 14. c. 10. So 
that, according to this, he that never did true penance all his life, 
but has deferred doing it till he is ready to die, seems to do it 
only out of necessity, not freely and willingly. And if this be the 
only reason of his doing it, it is certain his penance is not purely 
voluntary. 

16. It was such a penance as this that Semei did for the offence 
he had committed against David, when he fled from his son Ab- 
salom (2 Kings xvi. 19) ; for seeing him return home with victory 
after his flight, and being sensible of the misfortune that might 
befall him on that account, he w^ent out at the head of a great 
many men to receive the king, and with submission to beg pardon 
for w^hat he had done. Whereon Abisai, one of David's relations, 
seeing him, cried out, " What ! shall Semei by these words escape 
death, after having cursed the Lord's anointed ?" 2 Kings xix. 21. 
But David, who knew better than Abisai, that his submission 
w^ould do Semei but little good, prudently dissembling his dis- 
pleasure for that time, did not let the crime go unpunished ; for 
as he lay on his death-bed, out of the zeal he had for justice, not 
out of revenge, he commanded his son Solomon, as if it had been 
his last will, to deal with the traitor according to his deserts ; 



220 THE sinner's guide. 

3 Kings ii. 8, 9. It is such a penance as this, several Christians 
may be said to perform, who, after having, without any interrup- 
tion, offended the majesty of God during their whole lives, when 
the time of giving up their accounts comes, seeing death just be- 
fore them, with the grave open, and themselves just ready to 
appear before their Judge, and at the same time that there is no 
force that can resist this supreme power, and that the moment is 
just come which is to determine nothing less than eternity, they 
prostrate themselves before their Judge, begging and entreating 
him with all kind of humility, and making all the protestations 
imaginable, which, supposing them to be sincere, would be profit- 
able ; but we may guess what they are by the success they com- 
monly meet with. For we have seen by experience that several 
of these persons, after having escaped the danger they were in, 
have immediately neglected all their former promises, have taken 
up all their ill courses again, and put themselves a second time 
under the yoke which they seemed before to have been freed 
from, as if they did nothing out of a motive of virtue and for the 
love of God, but only because they saw themselves in danger, 
which was no sooner over than the good effects which were caused 
by it ceased. 

17. By which it appears that this kind of penance is just like 
that of seamen when they are in a storm: for every one then 
makes many promises and purposes of a change of life, and for 
laboring for the acquisition of solid virtue ; but as soon as ever the 
storm is past and they out of danger, they fall to cursing and blas- 
pheming again just as they did before, and trouble their heads no 
more about what is past, as if all their promises had been nothing 
but mere talk and words of course. 

18. The third reason is, because the evil custom of sinning, 
which a wicked man has lived in all his days, generally speaking, 
is his constant companion till death, as the shadow is that of the 
body ; for custom is like a second nature, which it is very hard to 
conquer. Thus we see, though with grief, several persons so 
entirely forgetful of their souls at that time, so covetous notwith- 
standing they are dying, so charmed with the love of hfe, that 
they would give any thing in the world to recover it again, as 
much slaves to the world, and every thing in it they had any affec- 
tion for, as if they were not reduced to the miserable extremity 
they unhappily find themselves in. Have you never seen even 
old men sometimes as greedy and as covetous, as busy about the 
securing of every little insignificant trifle, and as much proof against 
charity as ever they were before ? Nay, have they not as great a 
desire of those things they know they cannot carry with them ? 

This is a sort of punishment which God frequently inflicts on 
sin, permitting it to go along with its author to the very grave, as 
St. Gregory expresses thus : " God punishes a sinner after this 



THE sinner's guide. 221 

manner, permitting him to forget himself at his death, because he 
never thought of God during his whole life ; so that one forge tful- 
ness is punished by another : that which has all along been a sin 
is punished by that which is at the same time both a punishment 
and a sin ;" Homil. 2. in Evang. and in Ezech. Item. Lib. 20. 
Moral, c. 15. This is what we have daily proofs of: and we have 
often heard of persons who have died in the very arms of lewd 
women whom they have loved to their own ruin, and would not 
quit the company of them, not even at the very moment of their 
death, because, by a just judgment of God, they have neither been 
mindful of themselves nor of their souls. 

19. The fourth reason is grounded on the worth of those actions 
that are done at this time, for it is plain, at least to one that has 
any knowledge of God, that he is much less pleased with the ser- 
vice done him at this time, than with that we do him at another ; 
" Because it is no great matter," as the holy virgin and martyr 
St. Lucy said, " to be profuse of that which you v^ill be forced to 
leave behind ;" Surius Dec. 13. What is it for a man to forgive 
an affront, when it would be a dishonor not to pardon it ? What 
is it to turn away his mistress, when a man can keep her no longer ? 

20. From these reasons this doctor concludes, that it is very 
hard to perform a sincere penance at that time ; nay, he adds more 
yet, and says, " that the Christain who designedly defers his penance 
till he is ready to die, commits a mortal sin, because he does a great 
injustice to his own soul, and exposes himself to the danger of losing 
his salvation." Is there any thing, then, in the world we have 
more reason to be afraid of than of this ? 

§ III. The same Thing proved by the Authority of the Holy 
Scripture. — 21. But because the decision of this question depends 
chiefly on the word of God, which there is no appealing from, nor 
any exception to be brought against, hear now what it says on 
this point. Solomon, in the first chapter of his Proverbs, after 
setting down the words the Eternal Wisdom makes use of for 
calling men to repentance, immediately adds those which it will 
pronounce against such persons as shut their ears to this call, 
thus : " Because I have called, and you have refused to come, I 
have stretched out my hand, and there was no one that would 
take any notice ; because you have despised all my counsel, and 
have neglected my reproofs, I will also laugh at your destruction, 
and mock you when that w^hich you were afraid of shall befall you. 
When a sudden calamity shall rush upon you, and death shall 
come upon you like a storm when you least expect it ; when 
tribulation, as misery, shall encompass you : then they shall call 
upon me, and I will not hear them, they shall rise up in the 
morning, but shall not find me, because they have hated correc- 
tion, and have not had the fear of God before them, nor followed 
my advice, but have resisted all my reproof." Prov. i. 23 — 31. 

T2 



222 tHE sinner's guide. 

These are So omon's words, or rather the words of God himself, 
which St. Gregory, in his Book of Morals, cited before, turns to 
our present matter. What answer can you make to all this ? Will 
not these threats, as coming from God himself, be of force to make 
you afraid of falling into such a danger, and prepare yourself in 
time against this dreadful moment ? 

22. If this will not suffice, give ear to another authority, no 
less clear than this. Our Saviour, in the gospel, speaking of his 
coming at the day of judgment, with much earnestness advises 
his disciples to be ready against that day, and to this purpose 
brings several comparisons, to make them understand how im- 
portant this concern was. " Happy," says he, " is that servant 
whom his master, when he comes, shall find watching. But if 
the bad servant shall say in his heart. It will be a great while be- 
fore my master vdll come, and shall begin to beat his fellow ser- 
vant, and shall eat and drink with drunkards ; the master of that 
servant shall come at a day when he does not expect him, and 
at an hour that he is ignorant of; and he will separate him, and 
will give him a share amongst the hypocrites. There shall be 
weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matt. xxiv. 46—51. By this we 
may see that our Saviour was acquainted with the designs of the 
wicked, and the ways they use to cloak their crimes. And for 
this reason he meets them, as it were, and tells them what shall 
befall them, and what are like to be the effects of their vain con- 
fidence. Now what is it we are treating of but this very business? 
and what do I say, but what our Saviour himself said ? You are 
this bad servant, who are conceiving the same designs in your 
heart, and have a mind to take hold of this delay of your Master, 
as an opportunity of spending your time in eating and drinking, 
and of continuing still in your sins. How comes it you do not 
dread this threat which is made by God, who is as able to put every 
thing he says in execution as he is to say it ? It is to you he 
speaks, it is you he treats with, it is to you he directs his voice ; 
awake, then, unhappy man, and amend your life while you have 
time, for fear of being torn to pieces when the hour of this dread- 
ful judgment shall come. 

23. Methinks I spend too much time about a thing so clear ; 
but what shall I do when, notwithstanding all this, I see the 
greatest part of the world make use of this unhappy pretence ? 
That you may, therefore, have a clear sight of the greatness of 
this danger, hear what our Saviour says to this purpose in another 
place. He had no sooner made an end of the above-mentioned 
words, but he adds these which follow : " Then shall the king- 
dom of heaven be like to ten virgins, five of which were wise, and 
five were foolish ones;" Matt. xxv. 1. He says then, and when 
will this then be? When the Judge comes, when the hour of 
judgment shall draw nigh, and not only the general, but each 



THE sinner's guide. 223 

particular judgment, as St. Augustine explains this passage : be- 
cause the same sentence that shall be passed at the particular 
judgment will stand good at the general ; Aug. Ep. 80. ad JEsj' 
chium. This is the time when what happened to the virgins, 
says our Lord, shall happen to you. " There were five w^ise and 
five foolish virgins, that were waiting for the bridegroom ; the 
wise ones furnished their lamps with oil betimes, to go out to re- 
ceive him, but the foolish ones neglected to do it. At midnight," 
the time of the deepest sleep, that is, when men are not at all 
solicitous and think least of death, " a noise was heard, the bride- 
groom is coming, let us go out and receive him." Immediately 
these \'irgins all rose up, and they that had prepared their lamps 
entered with him to the marriage, and the door was shut ; but 
those that had not got their lamps ready began then to dress and 
to fill them, and to call upon the bridegroom, saying, " Lord, 
Lord, open to us. But he answered them. Verily, I know ye 
not." With these words the evangelist ends the parable, and 
immediately after tells us the meaning of it, saying, " Watch, 
therefore, because you neither know the day nor the hour ;" as if 
he had said, You have seen how those virgins prospered, who had 
got all things ready, and how unhappy, on the contrary, they 
were, that had not. Therefore, since you neither know the day 
nor the hour of his coming, and since the business of your salvation 
depends on your being ready, watch and be always prepared, for 
fear of being taken before you are aware, like these foolish vir- 
gins, and of perishing as they did. This is the literal sense of the 
parable, according to Cajetan, on this place, when he says, " That 
from this example alone we may draw this consequence, that the 
penance which is deferred to the very hour of a man's death, 
when he hears these words, ' behold the bridegroom is coming,' is 
not sure. On the contrary, it is looked on in this parable as 
false, because, generally speaking, it is so." And at the end he 
makes this the result of the whole parable, saying, " The moral 
of this doctrine is to let us know that the five foolish virgins were 
rejected, because they w^ere not prepared when the bridegroom 
came, whilst the others, being ready, were admitted. And, there- 
fore, it is requisite we should be always so, since we are ignorant 
both of the day and hour when he will come. What could be 
better expressed than this ? I wonder, therefore, that, after so 
plain a proof of this truth, men dare comfort themselves with so 
vain a hope. Were not this truth so clear, I should not wonder if 
they believed the contrary, or endeavored to deceive themselves : but 
after our great Master has decided this business, after the Judge 
himself has explained his laws and judgments by so many examples, 
and has told us how we are to be judged, who can be so senseless 
as to think this business will fall out quite otherwise than as he 
who is to pronounce the sentence has declared it shall ? 



224 THE sinner's guide. 

§ IV. Some Ohjedions answered. — 24. But perhaps in answer 
to all this you will say, What ! was not the good thief saved by 
one sentence at the hour of death ? St, Augustine answers this 
question in the book above cited, where he says, " That the con- 
fession the good thief made was all at once the hour of his con- 
version, of his baptism, and of his death ; whence it follows, that 
as he who dies immediately after having been baptized goes directly 
to heaven, as has happened to several persons, so it fared with this 
happy thief, because the hour of his death was the same to him as 
that of his baptism ;" De vera et falsa Poenit. 

25. We may answer this query another way, which is, that so 
wonderful an action as this, like all other miracles of the same na- 
ture, was reserved to the coming of the Son of God into the world, 
for a testimony of his glory ; and, therefore, it was requisite, that 
at the time of our Saviour's passion, the heavens should be dark- 
ened, the earth quake, the graves be opened, and the dead arise, 
because these prodigies were all kept against this time, as so many 
proofs of the glory of him who suffered, and amongst them we may 
reckon the salvation of the good thief; but we must here take 
notice, that this man's confession was no less wonderful than his 
salvation ; for he confessed the kingdom of heaven, even on the 
cross ; he publicly preached the faith of Christ present, when the 
apostles had almost lost theirs, and praised and glorified our 
Saviour when all the world was cursing and blaspheming him. 
Since, therefore, this miracle, as well as the rest, was for the mani- 
festing of our Saviour's dignity and glory at his death, it is folly to 
expect, that should generally be done at all times which was par- 
ticularly reserved for that. 

26. Besides, we see in all governments there are ordinary and 
extraordinary methods and ways of proceeding ; the ordinary are 
common to all, the extraordinary for some particular persons. 
The same is practised in the divine government of God's church ; 
for that is a regular and common method, which the apostle 
speaks of, that the end of the wicked shall be answerable to their 
works, to signify that generally a good death follows a good life, and 
an ill death an ill life ; 2 Cor. xi. The ordinary w^ay of proceeding 
is, that those who have done good works shall go into life everlast- 
ing, and those who have done evil shall be condemned to eternal 
flames. This is what we find frequently repeated in the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; it is sung by the psalmist, declared by the prophets, published 
by the apostles, and preached by the evangehsts. This is what David 
has explained in a few words, when he said, " The Lord has spoken 
once, and I have heard these two things, that power belongs to God, 
and that mercy is thine, O Lord, because thou wilt reward every 
man according to his works ;" Ps. Ixi. 12, 13. This is the sum 
of all Christian philosophy. Now, according to this, we say it is 
usual for the wicked, as well as for the just, to be rewarded at 



THE sinner's guide. 225 

the end of this life according to their deserts, which are to be 
measured by their works. Not that this law is so universal, but 
that God can show a particular favor to some persons for his 
own glory, and grant those the happiness of dying the death of 
the just, who have lived the lives of sinners; as it can, on the con- 
trary, happen, that a man may, by a secret judgment of God, 
die the death of a sinner, that has lived all his life-time like a just 
man; as a merchant, after a prosperous voyage, may be lost as he 
is entering the port. For which reason Solomon said, " Who 
knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam mounts upwards, 
and if that of beasts goes downwards ?" Eccl. iii. 21. Because, 
though it generally happens that the souls of those men w^ho live 
like beasts go down to hell, and th*at the souls of those who live 
like rational creatures mount up to heaven, yet, by some special 
judgment of God, the contrary may fall out in both respects ; but 
notwithstanding all this, the secure and general doctrine is, that 
whosoever lives well shall die happily. For this reason, no one 
ought to rely on the examples of particular graces, since they do 
not make any general rule, nor belong to all indifferently, but to 
a very few indeed, and those unknown ; so that you can have no 
assurance of your being of this number. 

27. Others make use of another pretence, and say, the sacra- 
ments of the new law make contrition of attrition, and that they 
shall be in this disposition, at least when they are dying, which, 
joined to the virtue of the sacraments, will suffice for the obtaining 
of their salvation. My answer is, that it is not any sort of sorrow- 
that will suffice for that kind of attrition, which, joined to sacra- 
ments, produces grace in those persons that receive them. For 
it is certain there are several sorts of attrition and sorrow, and 
that it is not any kind of it that changes a man's attrition into 
contrition, but only that which is known by no one but by him 
who is the Giver of all grace. 

28. The holy doctors have not been unacquainted with this 
truth, and therefore it is that they have spoken of penance with 
so much fear and apprehension, as we have shown already. And 
St. Augustine, in the first authority cited in confirmation of this 
doctrine, speaking of him that receives penance, and is reconciled 
by the sacraments of the church, says expressly, " We administer 
the sacrament of penance to the sinner, but we give him no as- 
surance ;" De 50. Hom. 42. 

29. But if, after this, you should urge further, and object the 
penance of the Ninevites to me, which proceeded from the 
apprehension they were in of being destroyed within forty days, 
I would have you reflect not only on the rigorous penance they 
performed, but the change of their lives; and do you change 
your life as they did theirs, and you \\dll not fail of finding the 
same mercy they did. But when I see you have no sooner 



226 THE sinner's guide. 

recovered your health than you return to your former evil courses, 
and neglect all the good resolutions you made during your sick- 
ness, what would you have me think of such penance as this is ? 

The Conclusion of this Chapter. — 30. All we have said here 
has not been to shut the gates either of salvation or hope on any 
one : which the saints have not done, nor ought any of us to do it. 
Our only design is to turn the vdcked out of this strong hold, in 
which they always take shelter, that they may continue in their 
sins with the more security. Tell me now, I beseech you, by the 
love of God, how dare you expose yourself to so imminent a ruin, 
when you have all the doctors and saints of the church, when 
you have reason itself, nay, and the Holy Scriptures, continually 
admonishing you of the danger of this penance ? "What is it you 
have to trust to at the last hour? Is it to the legacies you 
bequeath in your will for pious uses ? Is it to the prayers and 
masses you order to be said for you ? Alas ! you have seen how 
solicitous the foolish virgins were to supply themselves with 
what was requisite, and what entreaties they used at the door 
w^th the bridegroom, but all to no purpose, because nothing of 
all this proceeded from a true penance. Do you trust to the 
tears you shall shed then? Tears, it is true, have great force at 
all times, and happy is the man that weeps without hypocrisy and 
constraint ; but consider what floods of tears it cost him who 
sold his birthright to satisfy his gluttony, and yet the apostle 
tells us, *' That he had no place for penance, though it was what 
he sought after with so many tears" (Heb. xii. 17); for it was 
not for God's sake that he wept, but for the loss he had suffered. 
You, perhaps, rely on the good resolutions you shall majce at that 
time. These go a great way when they are sincere ; but call to 
mind the good dcvsigns which king Antiochus promised to himself, 
as he lay on his death-bed ; he made such great promises to God, 
that we cannot so much as read them without admiration and 
astonishment, and yet, after all, the Scripture says, '' That this 
wicked man prayed to God, from whom he was not like to obtain 
any mercy ;" 2 Macch. ix. 13. And why, but because all he 
promised was not out of a motive of love, but of servile fear ; 
which, though it is good, is not yet suflScient of itself for the 
gaining of the kingdom of heaven ; for a dread of hell's torments 
is what may. proceed from the natural love and affection every 
man has for himself; but for a man to love himself is not a means 
whereby he can possibly arrive at this kingdom. So that as no 
person had admittance into king Ahasuerus's palace that was 
clothed in sackcloth, so no one can enter into the kingdom of 
heaven in the dress of a slave ; that is, by the means of this 
servile fear alone, unless he be clothed with his wedding garment, 
which is love ; Esther iv. 2. 

31. Consider, therefore, seriously, now whilst you have time 
before you, that you must without doubt be one day or other in 



1 



THE sinner's guide. 527 

this condition ; nay, the time cannot be far off, for you see what 
haste the heavens make to finish their courses. This mortal hfe 
of ours, which is no more than a small flock of wool, will be 
soon spun out, w^hilst the wheel is perpetually turning round 
with so swift a motion. For this reason Moses says, " That the 
day of perdition is nigh, and that the seasons come upon us very 
fast ;" Deut. xxxii. 35. When you have run this short course, 
will follow the fulfilling of these prophecies, and then you will 
see how true a prophet I have been in all I have foretold you ; 
you will find yourself surrounded with pains, disturbed by cares, 
tormented by the presence of death, and in continual expectation 
of the lot which is immediately to befall you. O doubtful lot ! O 
dreadful passage ! O terrible trial, in which is to be passed the 
sentence, either of eternal life or of eternal death! Who will 
be able then to change their lot ? who will put a stop to this sen- 
tence? It is at present in your own power to do it; do not 
neglect the opportunity. You have now a convenient time to 
make your Judge merciful, now you may gain his favor. Take, 
therefore, the advice of the prophet along with you, who says, 
" Seek the Lord whilst he is to be found, call upon him while he 
is near ;" Isa. iv. 6. He is now near to hear us, though we cannot 
see him; when we are to be judged we shall see him, but he will 
not hearken to us, unless we now do something to deserve it. 



CHAPTER IIL 

Against those who continue in their Sins confiding in the mercy 

of God, 

1. There are others who continue in their wicked lives, con- 
fiding in God's mercies, and in the merits of our Saviour's 
passion, whom it is requisite to imdeceive, as well as the rest. 
You say the mercy of God is great, since he died on the cross 
for the salvation of sinners : I confess it is very great, since it 
bears with so great a blasphemy as in making his goodness the 
motive of your wickedness, and turning the cross, which he 
made use of as his instrument for the destroying the kingdom of 
sm, into an instrument for establishing and promoting it ; and 
whereas you are obliged to lay down a thousand lives, if you had 
them, in return for that which he laid down for you, you take 
occasion from thence to deny him that single fife you have received 
from him. This crime was a greater affliction to our Saviour 
than the death he suffered ; for though he never complained of his 
sufferings, yet he does of this injury by the prophet, saying, 
"Sinners have built upon my back, they have extended their 
iniquity ?" Ps. cxxviii. 3. Who is it that taught you to deduce 



228 THE sinner's guide. 

this consequence, that, because God is good, you will take the 
liberty of sinning, and escape without being punished ? The Holy 
Ghost does not teach us to argue after that manner, but thus : 
Because God is good, he deserves to be honored, obeyed and 
loved above all things ; because God is good, it is just I should 
be so too, and that I should hope in his mercy for the pardon of 
sins, though they be ever so great, if I do but return to him with 
my whole heart ; because God is good and infinitely good, it will 
be the greater crime in me to offend so much goodness ; and for 
this reason, the greater you suppose this mercy, which you put 
your trust in, so much the more heinous is every sin you commit 
against it. Nor is it just that such a crime should go unpun- 
ished ; nay, it belongs to divine justice to take care it should not ; 
neither is this justice, as you falsely persuade yourself, opposite to 
the divine goodness, but is its sister and protectress, and cannot by 
any means consent that such a crime should pass unpunished. 

2. This sort of excuse is not new, but has been long used in the 
world. This was the dispute between the true and false prophets ; 
for those coming from Almighty God threatened the people vdth 
the execution of his justice ; these, speaking of their own head, 
promised them a false peace and mercy : and as soon as ever 
God's heavy judgments had discovered the truth of the one, and 
the lies of the others, the true prophets said, " Where are now 
your prophets who prophesied to you and said. The king of 
Babylon (that is, Nabuchodonosor) shall not come upon you?" 
Jer. xxxviii. 18. 

3. You say God is very merciful ; but believe me, whosoever 
you are that say so, he has not opened your eyes yet to let you 
see how great his justice is ; for, if he had, you would cry out with 
the prophet, " Who is there, O Lord, that knows the power of thy 
wrath, and who can measure the greatness of thy indignation for 
fear?" Ps. Ixxxix. 11. 

4. That you may the more clearly perceive the danger of this 
mistake, let us go hand in hand together awhile. Neither you 
nor I have ever seen God's justice, as it is in itself, to know how 
far it reaches, nor have we any other way of knowing God in 
this world but by his works. Let us then go now into this spir- 
itual world of the Holy Scriptures ; and when we have been there 
awhile, we will come into this terrestrial world we live in, to take 
a view, in each of them, of the effects of the divine justice, that 
we may be the better able to know what it is. 

5. This journey will be very advantageous to us ; for besides 
the end we propose to ourselves, we shall receive another very 
considerable benefit, which is, the exciting and nourishing of the 
fear of God in our hearts, which the saints tell us is the treasure, 
the defence, the ballast of our soul. So that a vessel is not safe 
unless it will be poised and ballasted, because any gust of wind 
may overset her, so neither can the soul be secure if it wants the 



THE sinner's guide. 229 

weight of this fear. It is fear keeps her from being carried away 
and overturned by the winds either of human or divine favors ; 
whereas, let her be ever so richly fraught, she is perpetually in 
danger of being cast away whilst she wants this ballast. It is 
necessary, then, that not only those who are just entered into 
God's service, but even those who have been a long time in his 
family, should live continually in fear ; nor is this virtue required 
in sinners only, who have motives enough to excite them to it, but 
also in the just, who have not done so much as the others have 
to be afraid of; the subject of those persons' fear is, because they 
have fallen already ; the motive these have is, lest they should 
fall ; the one ought to be afraid, because of their past sins, and the 
others, upon the account of the dangers they may probably be 
exposed to. 

6. If you would know how this holy fear is to be produced 
within you, I tell you, that when it is once infused into your soul 
by grace, it is preserved and increased there, by frequent reflec- 
tions on the effects of God's justice, which we are now going to 
treat of. Let these be the frequent entertainment of your thoughts, 
and you ^vill find this fear will by degrees be formed in you. 

§ I. Of the, effects of the divine Justice mentioned in the Holy 
Scriptures. — 7. The first effect of God's justice, which the Holy 
Scripture speaks of, is the reprobation of the angels. The 
beginning of the ways of God was first shown on the prince of 
devils, as we find in the book of Job (ch. xl. 14) ; " for since all 
the ways of God are mercy and justice" (Ps. xxiv. 10), his jus- 
tice, till this first crime, had never manifested itself. It was shut 
up in the bosom of God, like a sword in a scabbard, which the 
prophet Ezechiel was frighted at, w^hen he considered what de- 
struction it would make ; Ezec. xxi. This first sin it was that 
made God draw the sword : and consider what a terrible blow the 
first was. Do but look up, and you will see what a deal of hurt 
^it did ; you will see one of the richest jewels of God's house, 
one of the greatest ornaments of heaven, a draft which gives so 
lively a representation of the divine splendor and beauty, " fall 
down from heaven like a flash of lightning," for one proud thought ; 
Luc. x. 18. He that was before the prince of angels, was made 
the chief of devils ; he that was before so very beautiful and glo- 
rious, became as oppositely deformed and ugly ; he that was 
crowned before with the greatest glory, was condemned to the 
severest torments ; he that was before God's greatest favorite, was 
changed into his greatest enemy, and so will continue for all eter- 
nity. What a subject of admiration must this be to those heavenly 
spirits, who well know from whence and whither that so noble a 
creature fell! With what astonishment will they repeat these 
words of Isaias (ch. xiv. 12) ; " How are you fallen from heaven, 
O Lucifer, you who rose in the morning !" 

8. Descend from heaven to the terrestrial paradise, and you will 

IJ 



230 THE sinner's guide. 

there see another fall, no less terrible than the former, had it not 
been retrieved ; Gen. iii. For if the angels fell, every one of 
them had committed an actual sin, which was the occasion of his 
fall. But what actual sin has an infant been guilty of to deserve 
to be sent into the world a child of wrath and indignation? 
There is no need of any actual sin for this ; it is enough to be 
descended from one who sinned, and by sinning infected the very 
root of all human nature, which was in him, that so the child is 
born with that sin ; so great is the glory and majesty of God, 
that a creature, for one offence committed against it, deserves no 
less a punishment than this is. If Aman, Ahasuerus's creature 
(Esther iii.), did not look on himself as satisfied, when he was 
revenged of Mardocheus, whom he imagined to be the man that 
had injured and abused him; but, on the contrary, thought his 
greatness obliged him to destroy all the Jews, for the affront 
which one single man had offered him ; what great matter, then, 
is it, for Almighty God's glory and infinite greatness to exact 
such a punishment ? Consider, then, the first man turned out of 
paradise for ieating of one morsel, for which the whole world has 
been ever since condemned to hunger and want. After the revo- 
lution of so many ages, the infant child carries the mark of his 
father's wound along with him, and is made a child of wrath, not 
only before he is capable of committing any sin, but even before 
he IS born. This injury is not put up yet, though it is so long 
since it was done, though it has been divided among so many 
millions of men, and has been so often and so severely punished. 
On the contrary, all those torments that have been suffered in 
the world to this day, all the deaths that have been hitherto, and 
all the souls that have been burning in hell fire since the fall of 
the angels, or that shall burn there for all eternity, are nothing 
but so many effects of the first crime, and so many proofs of the 
divine justice. Nay, what is still more astonishing, it continues, 
notwithstanding the redemption of the world by the blood of 
Christ. And yet, if man had not had this remedy applied to him, 
there would have been no difference at all between him and the 
devil, because the one would have had as great a probability of 
obtaining his salvation as the other. Are not these proofs of the 
divine justice strong enough to convince you? 

9. But as if this yoke, which the sons of Adam have so long 
groaned under, were not heavy enough, there have been from 
that time downward, new additions of punishments on punish- 
ments for new sins, which have taken their rise from this first sin. 
The whole world was drowned by the deluge ; Gen. vii. God 
rained down fire and brimstone from heaven on five lewd cities ; 
Gen. xiv. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and 
Abiron ahve for contending with Moses ; Num. xvi. Aaron's two 
sons, Nadab and Abiu, for omitting one single ceremony in their 
sacrifice, were burnt on a sudden by the fire of the sanctuary, 



THE sinner's guide. 231 

without finding any mercy, either on the consideration of their 
own dignity, as priests, or their father's sanctity, or the familiarity 
■which Moses, their uncle, had with God ; Levit. x. We read in 
the New Testament, that Ananias and Sapphira, for lying to St. 
Peter, in a matter which did not seem to be of any very great 
moment, fell down dead both of them on the spot ; Acts v. 

10. What shall I say of God's dreadful judgments ? Solomon, 
the w^isest among the children of men, for w^hom God had such a 
tender Iotc that he commanded him to be -called the " beloved of 
the Lord,'^ came at last, by God's unsearchable judgments, to 
fall into the worst and greatest of all sins, viz. the adoring of 
idols ; 2 Kings xii. 24 ; 3 Kings xi. Can there be any thing more 
dreadful than this is ? And yet if you did but know how many 
judgments of the same nature happen every day in the church, 
you would perhaps be no less surprised at them than at all that 
has been said. For you would see a great many stars fallen from 
heaven, you w^ould see several persons that have been invited to 
God's table, and have been fed with the bread of angels, brought 
into such a miserable condition, as to long after the food of swine 
to satisfy their hunger (Luke xv.); you would see a great number 
of chaste souls more beautiful and more glorious than the sun, 
sullied all over and darker than the midnight sky ; all which was 
occasioned by the sins and offences they fell into ; for God's de- 
crees and judgments lay no necessity on men's actions, nor deprive 
them of their free-will. 

11. But what is still more : could there be a greater proof of 
this justice, than that God should not be satisfied with any less 
satisfaction than the death of his only begotten Son, to purchase 
pardon for mankind? Can any words be more moving than those 
of our Saviour to the women who followed him when he went to 
be crucified ? " Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep over me, 
but weep over yourselves and your children ; for behold the days 
shall come in which they shall say, Happy those women that are 
barren, and the wombs which have not conceived, and the breasts 
which have not given suck. Then shall they begin to say to the 
mountains. Fall upon us ; and to the hills. Cover us. Because if 
they do these things to the green-wood, what will they do to the 
dry?" Luke xxiii. 28 — 31. As if he had said more clearly. If 
this tree of life and of innocence, on which there has never been 
any w^orm or rust of sin, burns thus, by the flames of the divine 
justice, for the sins of other persons, what will become of the 
barren and dry tree, which not charity, but palice, has overloaded 
with its own crimes? How rigorous, therefore, must God's jus- 
tice be in those other works of his, in which mercy does not exert 
itself, since it is so severe in this, which is the effect of his infinite 
goodness ? 

12. But if you are so dull as not to see the force of these 
arguments, reflect on the eternity of hell-torments, and consider 



232 THE sinner's guide. 

how terrible this justice is, which, for a sin of but one moment, 
condemns the soul to nothing less than pains everlasting. This 
dreadful justice suits very well with the mercy you so highly 
commend. Can any thing be so dreadful as to see how this great 
God, seated on the throne of his glory, will from thence look 
down on a soul after it has been tormented millions of years in 
such a terrible manner, without being moved to the least pity and 
compassion ? On the contrary, he will take pleasure in such a 
soul's sufferings, and will never put an end or limit to them, nor 
give it any hopes of ever finding ease. O wonders of the divine 
justice ! O subject of our astonishment and admiration ! O the 
unfathomable depth of this abyss ! Who is there so unreasonable 
and senseless as not to tremble at the thoughts of so dreadful a 
punishment ? 

§ II. Of the Effects of the divine Justice which are to he seen 
in this World. — 13. Let us now leave the Holy Scripture, and 
come to the visible world, and we shall there find other effects 
of a most terrible and most severe justice. They who are ever 
so little enlightened with the knowledge of God, live, whilst 
they are in this w^orld, in such fear and apprehension of these 
effects of justice, that, though they are able to conceive all the 
rest of God's works, yet they cannot do so in respect of this, but 
are forced to content themselves with a sincere and humble act 
of faith. Who is there that is not surprised to see the whole 
face of the earth covered over with infidelity ? To see what a 
nursery the devil has here to people hell ? To see that the great- 
est part of the world has been as much overshadowed with the 
darkness of its errors, even since our Saviour's death, as it w^as 
before ? What is all the Christian world in comparison to what 
the infidels possess, and to what is discovered every day ? All 
the rest is under the tyranny of the prince of darkness, without 
the least glimmering of the sun of justice. There the hght of 
truth has never shone out ; there no more rain or dew falls down 
from heaven than used to do upon the mountains of Gelboe ; 
2 Kings iii. From thence the devils still continue to carry off a 
great number of souls every day to everlasting flames, as they 
have done ever since the beginning of the world. For as in the 
time of the deluge no one escaped, that was not in Noe's ark 
(Gen. vii.) ; as none of the inhabitants of Jericho wTre saved but 
Rahab and her family, so neither can any one be saved but those 
of the house of God, that is the church ; Jos. vi. 2 ; Pet. iii. 

14. Consider again, in this little spot of the world, which the 
Christians possess, how each one behaves himself, and you will 
see, that in all this mystical body there is scarce one proud part, 
from the soul of the feet to the crown of the head ; Isa. i. Lay 
aside but a very few of the chief cities, where you may see some 
marks of sound doctrine, and run over all the other towns and 
countries, where they have no notion of the true worship, and 



I 



THE sinner's guide. 233 

you will find many places of which we may truly say what God 
said once of Jerusalem, "Go round about the ways of Jerusa- 
lem, and look in the streets, to see if you can find a man that is 
truly just, and I will show mercy towards him ;" Jerem. v. 1. I 
do not desire you to run up and down the market-places, or to 
public houses, which are for the most part full of nothing but 
lying and deceit. Do but consider what passes in your neigh- 
bor's families, and, as Jeremy says, " Do but give an ear to what 
they say, and you will scarce hear any one good word amongst 
them ;" Jerem. viii. 6. Go where you will, and you will hear 
nothing but murmuring, detracting, swearing, blaspheming, quar- 
relling, coveting and fighting. In fine, the tongue and the heart 
entertain themselves every where wdth the things of this world, 
and with the ways of promoting their interests, while at the same 
time God and heavenly things are what they trouble themselves 
about but Httle, unless it be in blaspheming and swearing by his 
holy name. Such a remembrance as this God himself complained 
of by his prophet, saying, " They remember me, but not in truth 
and justice, but only in swearing falsely by my name ;" Isa. xlviii. 
1 ; Zach. v. So that a man can hardly tell, at least by what he 
sees, whether these persons are Christians or heathens, except 
perhaps by the high towers and steeples he sees at a distance, and 
by the oaths and perjuries he hears when he comes nearer. What 
pretence, then, have such persons to reckon themselves in the 
number of those of whom Isaias said, " All that shall see them 
shall know them, because they are the seed which the Lord has 
blessed ?" Isa. Ixi. 9. If, therefore, the life of a Christian ought 
to be such, that every one that sees shall acknowledge him to be 
a child of God, w^hat rank shall we put those in, who rather 
seem to despise and laugh at Jesus Christ, than to live as become 
Christians ? 

15. How can you choose but see by this the effects of God's 
justice, since the crimes of the world are so many and so great ? 
For that the permitting men to fall into sin is one of the greatest 
punishments, and one of the most manifest signs of God's anger, 
is a truth as undeniable, as that the preserving a soul from sin is 
one of the greatest favors he is capable of receiving from God. 
Thus we read in the book of Kings, that God's anger was kindled 
against the children of Israel, and, therefore, he permitted David 
to fall into the sin of pride, of ordering Joab to go number the 
people ; 2 Kings xxiv. We read in Ecclesiasticus, " That God 
will preserve the merciful men from all evil, and will not permit 
them to be entangled in their sins ;" Eccl. xxiii. 16. For as one 
part of the reward due to virtue is the increase of virtue itself, so 
it frequently happens that the punishment of one sin is the per- 
mission to fall into another. Thus we see the severest punish- 
ments inflicted for the most heinous sin that ever was committed 
30 U2 



234 THE sinner's guide. 

in the world, to wit, the putting of the Son of God to death, was 
that which the prophet threatened the authors of this crime with, 
when he said, " Add iniquity, O Lord, to their iniquity, and let 
them not enter into thy justice" (Ps. Ixviii. 28) ; that is to say, 
permit them not to keep and obey thy commandments. And 
what follows from all this ? The same prophet tells us himself, 
in the next verse, where he says, " Let them be blotted out of the 
book of the living, and let them not be written amongst the just ;" 
Ibid. ver. 29. 

16. If, therefore, God's punishing of one sin by permitting 
another be so severe a punishment, and so great a proof of his 
anger, how is it possible you should not see the marks of the 
divine justice amongst such a number of sins as are even in fame 
and reputation in the world ? Turn your eyes which way you 
please, and you shall scarce see any thing but sins, like men in the 
midst of the sea, who have no other object but sky and water. 
And can you see all these sins without seeing justice too ? Can 
you be in the middle of the ocean, and see no water? And if all 
this world is nothing but an ocean of sins, it must needs be an 
ocean of justice. There is no need of going down into hell to see 
how the divine justice manifests itself there, we may see it plainly 
enough in this world. 

17. But if you can see nothing beyond yourself, at least look 
into yourself; consider that if you are in the state of sin, you are 
under the stroke of this justice, and are then most exposed to it 
when you think you are most secure. St. Augustine was once 
in this condition, as he himself acknowledges, when he says, " I 
was drowned in the depth of sin; your anger was provoked 
against me, and I knew nothing of it. I was quite deaf to the 
noise which the chains of my mortality made, and this ignorance 
of your anger and of my fault was a punishment of the pride of 
my soul." Conf. L. 2. c. 2. Now if God has inflicted this kind 
of punishment on you, and has permitted you to remain blind for 
so long a time, and to be drowned in your iniquities, how can you 
falsely imagine yourself to be in so happy a condition, when all 
things go so ill with you ? Let him who is in favor with God talk 
of his graces and mercies ; but he who suffers the rigor of his jus- 
tice should talk of nothing but his justice. Will God, out of his 
mercy, permit you to live so long in your sins, and not permit you 
to run headlong into hell, out of his justice ? O that you did but 
know how small the distance is between sin and the punishment, 
and between grace and glory. When a man is in the state of grace, 
what great matter is it to make him partaker of glory, or to punish 
him when he has committed any sin ? Grace is the beginning and 
purchase of glory ; so sin is an introduction and highway to hell. 

18. Besides, what can be more terrible than to see that though 
the pains of hell are so dreadful, as we have described them. 



THE sinner's guide. 235 

God should permit so great a number to be damned, and so few 
to be saved. But that you may not think I design to impose on 
you, when I say that this number is so very small, "He that 
counts the stars in the heavens, and calls them by their names," 
will tell you the same ; Ps. cxlvi. 4. Can any man, without 
astonishment and fright, hear these words of our Saviour, which 
are so well known, and yet so little understood and regarded? 
They are in his words to his disciples, when he answered them 
the question, whether the number of the elect were small or not : 
" Enter," says he, " at the narrow gate, because broad is the gate 
and open is the way which leads to destruction, and many there 
are that walk in it : how narrow is the gate and how straight is 
the way which leads to life, and there are but few that find it!" 
Matt. vii. 13, 14. Who can imagine how our Saviour was moved, 
when he cried out, not in a cold and indifferent manner, but with 
such an emphatic exclamation, " How narrow is the gate, and how 
straight is the way I" 

19. All the world was destroyed by the waters of the deluge, 
and only eight souls were preserved in Noe's ark (Gen. vii.), 
which, according to St. Peter, represents the small number of the 
elect, in comparison of the reproved ; 2 Pet. ii. 5. God brought 
six hundred thousand men out of Egypt, without counting their 
wives and children, to lead them into the land of promise ; and 
for this end he assisted and favored them in several respects, in a 
peculiar manner (Exod. xii.) ; yet, after all, they by their own 
fault, lost the land which God of his grace had offered them, 
and only two men of this great number had the happiness to go 
into it ; Num. ^iv. 30. From whence all the holy fathers unani- 
mously conclude, that this is a figure of the great number of 
those that are damned, and of the few that are saved ; which is 
the meaning of these w^ords, " that many are called, but few are 
chosen;" Matt. xx. 15. For this reason, the just, in several 
places of Holy Scripture, are called precious stones ; to give us to 
understand that just men are as rarely to be found in the world 
as precious stones, and that the number of the wicked as far 
exceeds that of the good, as the number of the ordinary stones 
does that of the precious ; as Solomon declared to us, when he 
said, " The number of fools is infinite ;" Eccles. i. 15. If, there- 
fore, the number of the elect is so small, and so soon counted 
xip, as the figure represents it to us, and as truth itself tells us 
(for you see how many persons were by a just judgment of God, 
deprived of the happiness they were called to) ; how can you 
stand so unconcerned in this common danger and universal del- 
uge? If the number of the elect were equal to that of the 
damned, you would still have sufficient reason to fear for your- 
self; but what do I talk of being equal? for to be damned to 
hell for all eternity is a misery so great, that though there were 
but one person out of the whole race of mankind to be sent 



236 THE sinner's guide. 

thither, each particular man ought to tremble for himself. When 
our Saviour told his disciples, as he was at supper with them, 
that " one amongst them was to betray him" (John xiii. 21), 
they all began to be afraid, though their consciences told them 
they were innocent: because, when a crime is very heinous, 
though it touch but few, every one is afraid lest he should have 
some share in it. If a great army of men were standing in a 
field, and should understand, by divine revelation, that a thunder- 
bolt was to fall and take one of them off, none knowing who it 
was to be, every one would be afraid lest he should be the per- 
son, and look on the danger as his own. What, then, would their 
apprehension be, if half the army, or the greater part, were to 
be destroyed by this thunderbolt ? Tell me now, you that are so 
wise in worldly affairs, but senseless to what regards your salva- 
tion, since God here reveals to you that the thunderbolt of his 
divine justice will fall on so great a number of persons, and so 
few shall escape it, how can you live so unconcerned and fearless, 
when you know not which of the parties you belong to ? Is hell 
to be dreaded less than thunder ? Has God given you any secu- 
rity for your salvation ? There is nothing that can give you any 
certainty of it. Your own works condemn you, and as the case 
now stands, unless you turn over a new leaf, you are one of the 
reprobates, and can you still be unconcerned at your danger ? 

20. You say God's mercy encourages you : that is no answer 
to what has been said ; on the contrary, if the permitting of so 
many persons to be damned be not incompatible with his mercy, 
why may it not as well suffer you to be one of that number, if 
you live as they have done ? Do not you perceive, .unhappy crea- 
ture, that self-love deludes you, making you think better of your- 
self than of all the world besides ? What privilege have you above 
the rest of the children of Adam, not to go where all those, whose 
works you imitate, have been sent before you ? 

21. If, as proved already, God is to be known by his works, 
I may safely say, that though we may make a great many com- 
parisons between his mercy and his justice, in which his mercy 
will be always superior, yet we shall find at last that there are 
more vessels of wrath in the race of Adam, from which you 
descend, than there are of mercy ; because the number of the 
damned is so far greater than that of the elect ; 2 Tim. ii. 20 ; 
Rom. ix. 22, 23. Now, this does not happen for want of God's 
grace and assistance (for he, as the apostle tells us, would have all 
men saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth), but through 
the fault of the wicked, who will not make their advantage of God's 
mercies. 

22. All I have hitherto said, has been to convince you, that if 
it is not incompatible w^ith that infinite mercy of God you talk of, 
to permit so many infidels in the world, and so many bad Chris- 



THE sinner's guide. 237 

tians in the church, and to suffer all these infidels, and so great 
a number of these Christians to be lost forever, it will be no less 
agreeable to it that you should perish with them, if you behave 
yourself like them. Did the heavens smile at your birth, or were 
the decrees of God, and the laws of the gospel, changed in favor 
of you, that you should expect to be singular in the world ? If it 
be no prejudice to this great mercy, that hell should enlarge its 
womb, and that so many thousands of souls should be swallowed 
up in it every day, what greater prejudice will it receive, if you, 
who live as they did, should be swallowed up amongst them ? And 
lest you should say, that God was severe and rigorous then, but 
is mild and merciful now, consider that, notwithstanding all his 
mildness, there is nothing of what you have heard, which he does 
not permit to this very day ; so that you may have just cause to 
fear punishment though you be a Christian, if you are a bad one. 
23. Will it be any lessening to God's glory, if you alone should 
fail of being admitted to it ? Have you any extraordinary quali- 
ties, which God stands particularly in need of, to make him bear 
with you and all your faults ? Or have you any particular privilege 
above all other men, which secures you from being damned, as 
well as they, if you are wicked? Since David's children, who 
w^ere favored in consideration of their father's deserts, were 
punished by God, according to their crimes, whenever they did 
wickedly, and several of them came to unfortunate ends, can you 
be puffed up with a vain confidence, and imagine yourself to be 
secure ? 3 Kings ii. 4 Kings xiv. Absalom, Ammon, Adonias. 
You deceive yourself, unhappy man, you deceive yourself, if you 
think this is hoping in God : this is not hope, but presumption ; 
for hope is a confidence that God will forgive all your sins, though 
ever so many or so great, if you repent and amend. But it is 
presumption to believe, that though you persist in a wicked life, 
your salvation is secure. And do not think this is an indifferent 
sort of sin, for it is accounted one of those against the Holy 
Ghost, because it is an abuse and affront to the goodness of God, 
^ which is particularly attributed to the Holy Ghost, which sins, our 
Saviour has told us, are not forgiven in this world, nor in the 
next ; to signify that it is very hard to be forgiven, because they, 
as much as in them lies, shut up the gate of grace, and offend the 
Physician that is to heal us. 

The Conclusion. — 24. We will conclude this matter with the 
discovery which the author of Ecclesiasticus makes us of this 
error, in these words ; " Do not lose the fear which you ought to 
be in, on account of your sins being pardoned you ; and do not 
say, the mercy of the Lord is great, he will not remember the 
multitude of my sins. For his anger and his mercy are very near 
to one another, and his wrath looks upon sinners ;" Eccl. v. 6, 7. 
If we are commanded to be afraid, even for those sins which have 
been pardoned already, tell me how is it possible you should be 



238 THE sinner's guide. 

free from fear, who daily increase the number of your sins ? Re- 
flect well on these words, " The wrath of the Lord looks upon 
sinners," because the understanding of this whole discourse 
depends on it. To this end, you are to know, that though the 
mercy of God extends itself to sinners as well as to the just, and 
that every man partakes of it, either by bfeing preserved by it, as 
some are, from falhng into sin, or by being reclaimed from sin, as 
others are, and expected to do penance ; notwithstanding all this, 
those extraordinary favors which God promises in his Scriptures 
belong particularly to the just, to whom he is, in every point, as 
good as his word ; because they have not failed in their promise 
to him, which was to observe his commandments with all the 
exactness and fidelity imaginable ; and because they have been 
obedient and dutiful children to him, therefore he shows himself 
a loving and tender Father to them. But as for all those threats 
and curses which you may read in the Holy Scriptures, and all 
those rigors and severities of the divine justice, persuade your- 
self that they are aimed at you, and all such as are like you. 
How great, then, must your blindness be, if you are not afraid of 
those threats, which are addressed immediately to you ; but, on 
the contrary, feed yourself up with the hopes of those favors 
which were not promised to you ! Take you what falls to your 
share, and let the just have what belongs to him. Anger is for 
you, therefore fear ; love and friendship are for the just, let him, 
therefore, rejoice. Would you have this made plain to you ? con- 
sider what David says : " The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, 
and his ears are open to their prayers. But his face is towards 
those that do evil, to blot the memory of them out of the earth." 
Ps. xxxiii. 16, 17. And in the book of Esdras you will find these 
words : " The hand of God " (that is, his fatherly providence) 
" is over all those that seek him, as they should do ; but his 
power, and strength, and fury is against all those that forsake 
him ;" Esdr. viii. 22. 

25. If all we have said here be true, how can you go on thus 
deceiving yourself, unhappy wretch, who continue still in your 
sins? How can you stand idly thus with your arms across? 
Why do you change and confound the order of things ? Those 
words are not directed to you. Is it to you that the sweetness 
of the divine love and friendship is promised, whilst you continue 
thus in the state of anger and enmity ? This belongs to Jacob, not 
to Esau. This inheritance is for the good ; what pretence, there- 
fore, can you, who are wicked, have to it ? Cease to be so, and 
it is yours. Cease to be so, and God will direct his love and his 
paternal providence to you ; but hitherto you have only usurped 
what is another man's right, and desire to enter into the posses- 
sion of what you have nothing to do with. " Hope in God," says 
David, " and do that which is good ;" Ps. xxxvi. 3. And in another 
psalm. " Sacrifice a sacrifice of justice, and hope in the Lord :" 



THE sinner's guide. 239 

i 

Ps. iv. 6. This is the right way of hoping, and not to continue 
in your sins, and think of gaining heaven by jesting with the 
Almighty's mercy. The true hope is to forsake your sins, and to 
have recourse to God. But if you remain obstinately in them, it 
is then no longer hope, but presumption. This is not to hope, 
it is rather to offend mercy, and thereby render yourself unworthy 
of ever obtaining it. Nor as being a member of the church is any 
advantage to him who, relying on her, takes no notice of her pre- 
cepts, but lives wickedly, so it is but just that he should reap no 
benefit of God's mercy who lays hold of it to do evil. 

26. This ought to be duly considered by the ministers of the 
word of God, v>^ho very often, not regarding to whom their dis- 
course is directed, give wicked men encouragement to continue in 
their sins. They ought to consider that the more you let a 
man eat, the more hurt you do him ; so the more you encourage 
and exhort those persons that are obstinate in their sins, to this 
kind of confidence, the more ye encourage them to continue in their 
evil courses. 

27. 1 will end this discourse w^ith an excellent sentence out of 
St. Augustine, who says, " that men go to hell by hope as well 
as by despair ; by hoping ill whilst they lived, and by despairing 
worse at their death ;" Serm. 147. De Verb. Dom. I advise you, 
therefore, O sinner, whosoever you are, to lay aside this presump- 
tuous confidence, and to remember that God has his justice as 
well as his mercy ; so that, as you consider his mercy to encourage 
your hope, you are likewise to reflect on his justice for the exciting 
of your fear. For, as St. Bernard says, " God has two feet, the 
one of mercy and the other of justice, and no one ought to embrace 
either of them without taking hold of both ; that so justice alone, 
w^ithout mercy, may not fright us into despair, nor mercy without 
justice, flatter us into presumption ;" Serm 80. in Cantic. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Of those Persons who excuse themselves from following Virtue 
by saying the Way to it is rough and uneasy. 

1. There is another excuse worldly men make use of for not 
following virtue, which is, that she is difficult and uneasy, though 
they know this does not proceed from virtue itself, because, being 
a friend to reason, she is suitable to the nature of a rational 
creature, but from the evil inclination of our flesh and appetite, 
derived from sin. This it was that made the apostle say. The 
flesh covets in opposition to the spirit, and the spirit in opposi- 
tion to the flesh ; for these two resist one another ; Galat. v. 17. 
And in another place he says, / am delighted with the law of God, 
according to the inward man ; hut I see another law in my mem- 



240 THE sinner's guide. 

berSy that resists the law of my spirit, and captivates me to the 
love of sin ; Rom. vii. 22, 23. The apostle by these words gives 
us to understand, that virtue and the law of God agree w^ell with 
and are comformable to the superior part, or the soul, which is all 
spiritual, as being the place where the understanding and the will 
reside ; but we are hindered from observing this law by the law of 
our members, that is, by the evil inclination and corruption of our 
appetite, with all its passions, which rebelled against the superior 
part, or the soul, at the same time that it rebelled against God, 
which rebellion is the cause of all this difficulty. Therefore it is 
that so many persons reject virtue, though they have a great esteem 
for it, like sick men, who, though they desire to recover their 
health, yet hate the medicines because they are unpleasant. If 
we could disabuse men of this mistake, it would be a great work ; 
for it is this that chiefly drives them from virtue, in which every 
thing is to be esteemed and valued. 

§ I. That the Gi'ace, which is given us through Jesus Christ, 
makes the Way of Virtue smooth and easy. — 2. You must under- 
stand that the chief cause of this mistake is, men considering 
nothing but the difficulty that is in virtue, without so much as 
ever reflecting on the assistance God gives us for the overcoming 
of it. It was such an error as this the prophet Eliseus's servant 
was in : for seeing his master's house beset with the Syrian army, 
but not perceiving the forces which God had prepared to succor 
the prophet, he was quite dismayed till such time as God, at the 
prophet's intercession, opened his eyes, and let him see there were 
more forces on his side than on the enemy's. Those we here treat 
of are deceived after the same manner ; for finding in themselves 
the difficulty there is in virtue, without having had any proof of 
the favors and assistance they may receive from God, in order to 
acquire the same, they look on the enterprise as very hard, and, 
therefore, lay it quite aside. 

3. But if the way of virtue be so difficult, what can the prophet 
mean when he says, " I have taken as much delight in the way 
of thy commandments as in all riches ;" Ps. cxviii. 14. And in 
another place : " Thy commandments, O Lord, are more desira- 
ble than gold and precious stones, and sweeter than honey and 
honey-comb ;" Ps. xviii. 11. So that he not only allows virtue 
what we all grant it, that is, extraordinary worth and excellence, 
but that which almost all the world denies it, pleasure and sweet- 
ness; whence you may conclude, that they who represent this 
as a heavy load, though they be Christians, and live under the 
law of grace, have not so much as tasted of this mystery. Un- 
happy creature that you are, who talk so much of being a Chris- 
tian ! For what did Christ come into the world ? What was the 
end of the shedding of his blood ? What did he design by insti- 
tuting the sacraments ? Why did he send down the Holy Ghost ? 
What signifies the gospel ? What signifies the word grace ? 



THE sinner's guide. 241 

What means the name of Jesus? What can this most holy- 
name of that Lord whom you adore signify ? If you are igno- 
rant of this, ask the evangelist, who says, " You shall call his 
name Jesus ; for he shall deliver his people from their sins ;" 
Matt. i. 21. What is it, then, to deliver us from our sins, but to 
deserve pardon for us for past sins and to obtain grace for 
us, whereby we may be able to avoid sin for the future? 
What, therefore, was the end of our Saviour's coming into the ' 
world, but to help us in the work of our salvation ? For what 
reason did he die on the cross, but that he might thereby destroy 
sin? Why did he rise again afterwards from the dead, but only 
to make you rise again to this new kind of life ? What did he 
pour out his blood for, but to make a medicine of the same, for 
the healing of your wounds ? Why did he ordain the sacraments ? 
It was for a remedy and assistance against your sins. What is 
one of the chief advantages of his passion and of his coming, 
but the making that way, which before was rough and difficult, 
smooth and easy for us ? Isaias told us as much w^hen he said, 
" That at the coming of the Messias the crooked ways shall be 
made straight, and the rugged ways shall be made even ;" Isa. 
xl. 4. For what reason, in fine, did he send down the Holy 
Ghost, but to change you from flesh into spirit ; and why did he 
come in the form of fire, but to kindle, enlighten and enliven 
you, to transform you into himself, and to make you mount up 
towards heaven from this earth of ours? What is the use of 
grace, with the infused virtues that proceed from it, but to make 
the yoke of Christ sweet and delightful, to make the practice of 
virtue easy, to make you joyful in your afflictions, to make you 
hope in your dangers, and to give you a victory over all your 
temptations? This is the whole design of the gospel, viz: 
that as an earthly and sinful man, to wit, Adam, made us earthly 
and sinners, so another man, that was heavenly and just, to wit, 
Christ Jesus, has made us become so too. What else do the 
evangelists treat of? What else have the prophets promised us ? 
What else have the apostles preached to us ? This is the sum of 
all Christian divinity ; this is the word which God spoke on earth ; 
this is the accomplishment and abridgement, which the prophet 
Isaias says, "he had from the mouth of God" (Isa. xx. 2, 3); 
from whence such vast treasures, so many virtues, and so much 
justice immediately flowed into the world. 

4. To make this the plainer I ask you, What is the cause of 
that difficulty which we meet with in virtue ? You will tell me, 
the evil inclinations of our hearts, and the flesh that is conceived in 
sin: because the flesh resists the spirit, and the spirit the flesh, 
as things contrary to one another ; Gal. v. 17 ; Rom. vii. Let us 
put the case that God says to you, Come hither, O man ! I will 
take away this wicked heart of yours, and will give you another 
31 V 



242 THE sinner's guide. 

new heart, and with all strength to mortify your evil incUnations 
and appetites. Should God make you that promise, would the 
way of virtue be then difficult to you ? It is certain it would not. 
What is it less than this, that God has so often promised in his 
Holy Scripture ? Hear what he says by the prophet Ezechiel, 
addressing himself particularly to those who live under the law of 
grace : " I will give you," says he, " a new heart, and I will put 
a new spirit into your bowels ; and I will take away your heart 
of stone, and I will give you a heart of flesh ; that you may walk 
in my precepts, and observe my laws, and comply with them ; and 
that you may be my people, and that I may be your God ;" Ezec. 
xxi. 19, 20. These are the words of the prophet. What can 
you doubt of after such a promise ? Can you be afraid that God 
will not be as good as his word ? or can you doubt of your 
being able to observe his law, if he stands to his promise of 
assisting you ? If you affirm the first, you make God a liar, 
which is one of the greatest blasphemies you can be guilty of. If 
you say you cannot observe his law, even with his assistance, you 
make him unable to provide for us as our necessities require, 
because, having intended to cure man, he has applied such a 
remedy as was not fit to do it. 

5. Besides all this, God will give you power to mortify these 
evil inclinations which rise up against you, and make this way so 
hard. This is one of the chief effects of the tree of life, which 
our Saviour has sanctified by his blood, according to the apostle's 
confession, when he says, " Our old man has been crucified with 
Jesus Christ, that the body of sin may be destroyed, and that we 
may be slaves to sin no longer ;" Rom. vi. 6. The apostle calls 
here the old man, and the body of sin, our sensual appetite, with 
all the vicious inclinations that proceed from it. He says that 
he was crucified on the cross with Jesus Christ, because our 
Saviour has, by this most august sacrifice, obtained for us such 
grace and strength as may enable us to overcome this tyrant, and 
free ourselves from the oppression of our own evil inclinations, 
and from the slavery of sin, as we have said elsewhere. This is 
the victory and the extraordinary favor which the same Lord 
promised us by Isaias, saying, " Fear not, because I am with you; 
retire not from me, because I am your God. I will strengthen 
and assist you, and the right hand of my just one (which is the 
Son of God -himself) shall support you. Behold, they shall be 
all confounded and put to shame that fight against you ; they 
that contend with you shall be as nothing, and shall perish. You 
shall seek after those who have rebelled against you, and you 
shall not find them; they shall be as if they never had been. 
And those who are at war with you shall be consumed. Because 
I am the Lord your God, I will take you by the hand, and will 
say to you. Fear not ; I will stand by you." Isa. xli, 10, 11, 12, 
13. These are God's words by the prophet Isaias. Will any 



THE sinner's guide. 243 

man, therefore, be discouraged when he is so strong ? Will any 
man now sink under the fear of his own vicious inchnations, when 
grace gets such a glorious victory over them ? 

§ II. Some Objections answered. — 6. You will tell me, perhaps, 
that after all this, the just are never without their private failings, 
" which are the wrinkles, that (as Job says) accuse and bear wit- 
ness against them ;" Job xvi. 9. The same prophet whose 
authority we have just cited, answers this in short, saying, " that 
they shall be as if they never had been ;" Isa. xli. 12. Because, 
if they remain, it is only to keep us in continual exercise, and to 
prove us, not to hinder or to shock us ; they remain to excite and 
rouse us, not to lord it over us ; they remain to give us perpetual 
occasions of merit, not to draw us into the snares of sin ; they 
remain for us to triumph over them, not that they may overcome 
us ; they remain, in fine, for those ends that are most proper and 
convenient for our trial, for our humiliation, for the knowledge 
of our own weakness, for God's glory and the honor of his grace, 
so that their continuing thus turns to our interest. For as wild 
beasts, let them be ever so fierce, and of their nature so great 
enemies to man, w^hen once they have been tamed, are serviceable 
to him ; so our passions, after having been moderated and subdued, 
assist us very much in our improvement in virtue. 

7. Tell me now, if God supports, who will be able to overturn 
you ? "If God is for you, who will be against you !". Rom. viii. 
31. " The Lord (says David) is my hght, and my salvation, 
whom shall I fear ? The Lord is the defender of my life, whom 
shall I be afraid of? Should my enemies encamp themselves 
against me, my heart shall not dread. If an army should rise up 
against me, I will place my hopes in him." Ps. xxvi. 13. You 
must needs be a great coward if such promises do not encourage 
you to serve God ; if you v^ill not rely on those words, it is a sign 
you are very faithless. It is God that says, he will give a new 
being ; " that he will change your heart of stone, and give you 
another of flesh for it" (Ezec. xi. 19) ; that he will mortify your 
passions, and bring you to such a pass that you shall not know 
yourself; that you shall look for your evil inclinations and shall 
not find them, because he will weaken all their forces. What can 
you desire more ? What do you want but a lively faith and hope, 
that you may place your confidence in God, and cast yourself 
entirely into his arms ? 

8. All the objection I imagine you can make to this is, that 
your sins are very great, and, therefore, it is hkely they wiU be the 
occasion of God's refusing you this grace. To which I answer, 
that this is one of the greatest affronts you can offer to God ; 
because, by this, you persuade yourself either that God cannot 
or will not assist his creatures, when they return to him and beg 
his help. I do not desire you should believe me in this particu- 
lar ; do but believe the holy prophet, who seems to have thought 



244 THE sinner's guide. 

on you, and, as it were, to have prevented you, when he wrote 
these words : " If," says he, " all these curses which I have reck- 
oned up should light upon you for your sins, and you should be 
afterwards touched with a sorrow for them, and should return to 
him with your whole heart and with all your soul, the Lord your 
God will bring you out of your captivity, and will have compas- 
sion on you ; and though you should be carried away to the far- 
thest parts of the world, he will bring you back again, and will 
lead you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall 
inherit the same." He adds further, " The Lord your God will 
circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your posterity, to the end 
that you may love the Lord your God with all your heart and 
with all your soul ;" Deut. xxx. 1,6. O that this Lord would 
at present circumcise your eyes, and remove the mist that is before 
them, that you might see plainly what kind of a circumcision this 
is ! You cannot be so dull as to take it for a circumcision of the 
body, because the heart is not capable of it ; what sort of circum- 
cision is it, then, that the Lord promises in this place ? It is, 
without doubt, the retrenching of that superfluity of passions and 
evil inclinations which flows from the heart, and w^hich hinders it 
from placing its love where it ought. These are the superfluous 
and hurtful branches which he promises to lop off vdth the knife of 
his grace, that the heart, being thus pruned and circumcised, may 
shoot forth all its virtue by this only branch of the love of God ; 
John i. 47. Then it is that you will be an Israehte indeed ; it is 
then you will be truly circumcised, when he shall see the love of 
the world cut off from your soul, and no other love remaining in 
it but the love of him. 

9. I could wish you would consider with attention how God, 
in another place, commands you to do that yourself which he 
promises here he will do for you, if you will but return to him. 
His words are these : " Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and 
take away the foreskins of your hearts ;" Jerem. iv. 4. Why, O 
Lord, do you command me to do what you yourself promise to 
do for me ? If I must do it, why do you promise that you will ? 
The glorious Augustine clears this difficulty by these words: 
" Give me grace (says he), O Lord, to do whatever you com- 
mand me, and command me to do whatever you please ;" Conf. 
L. 10. c. 31. So that it is he who commands me all that I am 
obliged to do, and assists me with his grace to do it. Thus the 
command and the promise meet here both together, and God and 
man produce the same effect ; God as the principal cause, and 
man as the less principal. Thus it is that God deals with men as 
a painter that should guide the pencil in his scholar's hand, and 
he, by this means, comes to draw a fine piece : that they both made, 
it is clear ; but it would not, therefore, follow that they both deserve 
the same honor, or the one had as good a hand as the other. It 
is just so God does in our present case, and that without preju- 



THE sinner's guide. 245 

dice to the liberty of free-will, that man may have nothing to take 
a pride in when the work is done, but may give all the glory of it 
to the Lord, and say, with the prophet, " Thou, O Lord, hast 
wrought in us all the works that we have done ;" Isa. xxvi. 12. 

10. Reflect, therefore, on this sentence, and by the means of 
it you will come to have a perfect understanding of the command- 
ments of God, because he promises to be with you in doing all 
he commands you. And thus, as he says, when he bids you cir- 
cumcise your heart, that he will circumcise it for you ; so, when 
he bids you love him above all things, he will give you grace to 
do it. This is the reason why it is said that " God's yoke is sweet" 
(Matt. xi. 30) ; because there are two to carry it, that is, God and 
man ; so that, by this means, God's grace makes that easy which 
nature by itself made very difficult. And, therefore, Moses, im- 
mediately after the words above cited, goes on thus : " The com- 
mand, which I lay upon you this day, is not above you, nor at any 
great distance from you ; nor is it placed in heaven, that you 
should say. Is there any one of us that can go to heaven, and 
bring it from thence to us, that we may obey it and comply with 
it ? Neither is it placed beyond the sea, that you should have 
any reason to say, Who is there amongst us that can go over the 
sea and bring it away to us, that we may obey and do all that is 
commanded ? On the contrary, it is just by you, in your mouth 
and in your heart, to the end that you may observe it." Deut. xxx. 
11, 12, 13, 14. By which words the holy prophet designed to 
remove those difficulties and impediments which sensual men find 
in the law of God ; because, considering the law barely, without 
the gospel, that is to say, looking on what is commanded without 
regarding the grace which is given to enable them to perform it, 
they reflect on the law of God as hard and unpleasant, without 
considering they flatly contradict St. John in this point, who says, 
" True charity consists in our keeping of God's commandments, 
and his commandments are not burthensome ; because all that is 
born of God overcomes the world" (John v. 3, 4) ; meaning that 
they who have received the spirit of God in their souls, by the 
means of which they have been regenerated, and made the chil- 
dren of him whose spirit they have received, have God within 
them, who dwells in them by grace, and enables them to do much 
more than all the world could besides ; so that neither the world, 
nor the devi], nor all the powers of hell, can prevail against them. 
Whence follows that, though God's commandments were very 
heavy, the new force, furnished by grace, would make them light. 

§ III. That the Love of God makes the way to Heaven easy and 
pleasant. — 11. If, to all that has been said, we add the assistance 
we receive from charity, how light and easy will virtue be then ! 
For it is evident that one of the chief qualities of charity is to 
make the yoke of God's laws very delightful ; because, as St. Au- 
gustine says, " They who love think^ no labors painful ; nay, 

V2 



246 THE sinner's guide. 

they delight in them, as men that love fishing, hunting or hawk- 
ing do in the toils and fatigues of those sports ;" St. Aug. Trac. 
48. in Joan. What is it that makes a mother not regard the 
pains she takes in bringing up her children, but love ? What is 
it that makes a virtuous wife attend her sick husband day and 
night, without any intermission? What is it that makes even 
beasts and birds take so much pains for the nourishing of the 
young ones, so as almost to starve themselves to feed them, to 
labor hard, that they may take their rest, and to expose them- 
selves to danger, w^ith a great deal of courage to defend and 
secure them ? It is nothing else but love. What else was it that 
made the apostle St. Paul speak these generous words, which we 
read in his epistle to the Romans : " Who then shall separate us 
from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, 
or nakedness, or danger, or persecution, or the sword ? I am sure 
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to sepa- 
rate us from the love of God." Rom. viii. 35, &c. What was it 
else, but the force of this love, that made the holy father St. Dom- 
inick thirst so ardently after martyrdom ? What was it that made 
St. Laurence so cheerful, whilst he was broiling upon the grid- 
iron, as to cry out that the very flames refreshed him, but the 
excessive desire he had of martyrdom, . kindled in him by this 
love ? " For the true love of God," as St. Chrysologus says, 
" thinks nothing hard, nothing bitter, nothing heavy. What iron, 
what wounds, what pains, what death is there, which true love 
cannot overcome ? Love is an armor of proof ; it turns the arrows, 
repels the darts, despises dangers, and laughs at death. In fine, love 
carries all before it." St. Chrysologus's Serm. 147. de Incarnat. 

12. Nor is perfect love satisfied with overcoming such labors 
and difiliculties as occur, but desires to meet w^ith more, for his 
sake that is beloved. Hence proceeds that eager thirst of perfect 
men after martyrdom ; that is, to shed their blood for him who 
first shed his for them. And because they martyr their bodies, 
and torment them with hunger, they cannot obtain their desires, . 
they are enraged against themselves, and become their own execu- 
tioners. Therefore they martyr their bodies, and torment them 
with hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and with many other mortifications, 
and thus they, find a great deal of comfort in their sufferings, be- 
cause they, in some measure, obtain what they desired. 

13. This language they that love the world do not understand, 
nor can they conceive how any man can love what they so much 
abhor, or have a horror for what they so passionately love. We 
read in the Holy Scriptures that the Egyptians had beasts for their 
gods, and as such adored and worshipped them : but the children 
of Israel called these things abominations which the Egyptians 
called gods, and sacrificed such creatures as they adored for gods, 



THE sinner's guide. 247 

in honor of the true God ; Exod. vii. 26, 28. The just, in the 
same manner, Hke true Israelites, call those abominations which 
the world worships as its gods ; such are honors, pleasures and 
riches, which it adores and offers sacrifice to ; they despise and 
make a sacrifice of those false gods, as of so many abominations, 
to the glory of the true God. So let him, who would offer an 
acceptable sacrifice to God, observe what the world adores, and 
offer that ; on the contrary, let him embrace, for the love of God, 
whatsoever he sees the w^orld detest and abhor. Did not they do 
so, who, after receiving the first fruits of the Holy Ghost, were glad 
to have been carried before the council, and to have suffered inju- 
ries for the name of Christ ? Acts v. Is it possible, then, that 
what made prisons, scourges, gridirons and flames delightful, shall 
not be able to make the keeping of God's commandments sweet 
and pleasant to you ? Can that, which is every day powerful 
enough to make the just bear, not only the burden of the law, but 
the additional weight of their fasts, their watchings, their hair- 
shirts, their nakedness and their poverty, w'ant force to make you 
carry the bare burden of the law of God and of his church? Alas! 
how" much are you deluded ! How" ignorant you are of the force 
of charity and of the grace of God I 

§ IV. Of some other Things which make the Way of Virtue 
pleasant to us. — 14. What has been said might suffice to remove 
this objection so many make use of. But, supposing there w^ere 
nothing of w^hat we have urged, supposing there were many hard- 
ships in this road, what wonder were it you should, for the salva- 
tion of your soul, do some part of what you do for the health of 
your body ? What mighty matter w^ould it be to do something 
to escape eternal torments? What do you think the covetous 
rich man, w"ho is now burning in hell-fire, would not do, if he 
were to have the liberty of returning to the world, to do penance 
for his sins ? There is no reason but you should do as much now 
as he would do, were it in his powder ; because, if you are wicked, 
the same torment is prepared for you, and, therefore, you ought to 
have the same desire. 

15. Besides, if you did seriously consider how much God has 
done for you, and how much more he promises you ; if you did 
reflect on the many crimes you have committed against him ; 
upon the toils and hardships which the saints have undergone, and 
particularly upon those which the Saint of saints has endured for 
your sake ; you could not but be ashamed and blush, not to suffer 
something for the love of God ; nay, you would even be afraid 
and jealous of every tiling that pleased you. 

This it was that made St. Bernard say, " that all the tribula- 
tions and torments we can possibly suffer in this fife bear no pro- 
portion with either the glory we hope for, or the torments w^e 
fear, or the sins we have committed, or the benefits God has be- 
stowed on us." Any one of these considerations ought to suffice 



248 THE sinner's guide. 

to make us undertake this life, though ever so laborious and trou- 
blesome. 

16. But to deal ingenuously with you, though there be troubles 
and difficulties in all places, and in all sorts of lives, yet the hard- 
ships that occur in the way of the wicked are incomparably more 
than in the way of the just. For though it is troublesome to go 
a long journey afoot, pick your way out as well as you can, be- 
cause you will be tired before you get at your journey's end ; yet 
it is certain that a blind man, who stumbles every step he takes, 
will find it much more troublesome than he that walks with his 
eyes open, and minds where he treads. Since, therefore, this 
life of ours is but a journey, it is impossible to avoid all those 
troubles that are in it, till we arrive at our resting-place. But 
the wicked man, not guiding himself by the rules of reason, but 
according to the impulse and bent of his passions, it is a plain 
case that he walks on as if he were blind, since there is nothing 
in nature so blind as passion. On the contrary, the good and 
virtuous man, following in all things the dictates of reason, dis- 
covers these precipices at a distance, and avoids the same, con- 
tinuing on his journey, by this means, with less trouble, and much 
more security. Solomon the wise was sensible of this, and ac- 
knowledges it to be so, when he says, " The path of the just, like 
a bright light, goes on and increases till it come to full day. But 
the way of the wicked is dark ; so that they do not know where 
the precipices are, that they may fall down." Prov. iv. 18, 19. 
It is not only dark, as Solomon says, but slippery too, according 
to David (Ps. xxxiv. 6) ; so that by this you may see how often 
that man must, of necessity, fall, who walks in such a way as this 
is, in the dark, and himself quite blind ; and by these comparisons 
you may perceive what vast difference there is between the two 
ways of the wicked and the just, and between the difficulties both 
parties meet with. 

17. And what is yet more, the just have a thousand helps 
that lessen and ease this little trouble they are at, as has been 
observed before. For, first, they have the assistance of God's 
fatherly providence, which directs and guides them : they have 
the grace of the Holy Ghost, that strengthens and encourages 
them ; they have the virtue of the sacraments, which sanctifies 
them ; they have the divine consolations, which refresh them ; 
they have the examples of good men to excite them ; they have 
the writings of the saints to instruct them ; they have the joy of 
a good conscience to comfort them ; they have the hope of ever- 
lasting glory to nourish them ; with a thousand other favors and 
assistances which the Almighty gives them : by means of which, 
this way becomes so pleasant to them that they come at last to cry 
out, with the prophet, " How sweet are thy words, O Lord, to my 
mouth! they are sweeter than honey." 

18. Whosoever will but reflect on this, will immediately see 



THE sinner's guide. ' 249 

how several passages of the Holy Scriptures, some of which make 
the way of virtue rough and troublesome, and others again smooth 
and easy, are to be reconciled together. For the royal prophet 
says in one place, " For the love of the words of thy lips I have 
walked through hard ways ;" Ps. xvi. 4. And in another, " I have 
been delighted in the way of thy testimonies, as in all riches ;" 
Ps. cxviii. 14. For it is true to say that both these things, to wit, 
difficulty and ease, are in this way ; the first comes from nature, 
and the other from the virtue of grace ; and thus what was difficult 
on account of one, becomes easy by means of the other. Our 
Saviour himself signified as much to us, by these words : " My 
yoke is sweet and my burden is light ;" Matt. xi. 30. For by 
giving it the name of a yoke, he expressed the heavy weight, and 
by calHng it sweety he showed us with how much ease we might 
carry it by the help of grace. 

19. But if you should ask me, how is it possible this can be a 
yoke, and at the same time sweet, it being the nature of a yoke to 
be heavy : I answer, it is because God makes it light, according 
to his promise by the prophet Osee ; " I will be to them as one 
that supports their burden, and takes it from their shoulders;" 
Osee xi. 0. What wonder is it, then, that this yoke should l3e 
easy when God makes it so, and when he himself helps us to carry 
it ? If the bush was a fire without being burnt, because God was 
in it, why should we be astonished at a burden's being light, when 
God himself is under it ? Exod. iii. 2. Would you see them both 
in the same person, hear what St. Paul says : " We suffer tribula- 
tion in all things, and are not troubled ; we are in distress, but not 
despair ; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken ; we are cast 
down, but are not confounded ;" 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9. Consider here, 
on the one side, the w^eight of these labors, and on the other, how 
Hght God used to make them. 

20. Isaias signified this more expressly to us, when he said, 
" They that hope in the Lord shall change their strength ; they 
shall take wings like eagles ; they shall run, and shall take no 
pains ; they shall walk, and shall not faint ;" Isa. xli. 13. You 
see here the yoke flung off by the virtue of grace ; you see the 
strength of the flesh changed into that of the spirit, or rather the 
strength of man turned into that of God ; you see the holy prophet 
did not pass over in silence either the labor, the rest, or the ad- 
vantage which one has over the other, when he said, " They shall 
run, and shall take no pains ; they shall walk, and shall not faint." 
So that you ought not to go out of this road, because it is rugged 
and troublesome, since there are so many things in it which make 
it smooth and easy. 

§ V. Some Examples to prove what has been said. — 21. If all 
these reasons cannnot convince you, and your incredulity re- 
mains, like that of St. Thomas, who would not believe any thing 
32 



250 THE sinner's guide. 

but what he saw with his own eyes, I will comply with you in 
this point too, not fearing that such a good cause as this is can 
want a defence. Let us, for example, take a man that has run 
through all the courses of this life, that has been for some time 
very vicious and worldly, and has afterwards, through the pure 
mercy of God, changed these evil practices, and become quite 
another thing ; such a man as this is a proper judge, because he 
has not only heard, but seen and had the experience of both these 
conditions. You may desire this man to tell you, which of these 
two he found to be the sweeter? Several of those, whose 
business it is to examine into the consciences of others, will give 
you good testimonies of this truth; "because they are the men 
who descend in ships into the sea, and see the wonderful works 
of the Lord in the deep ;" which are nothing else but the effects 
of his grace, and those extraordinary changes w^hich are WTOught 
every day by virtue thereof, and which are, without doubt, subjects 
of more than common wonder. For it is certain there is nothing 
in the world which better deserves our admiration, if we w^ould 
but consider it well, than to see the effects which grace produces 
in the soul of a just man ; to see how it transforms him, how it 
bears him up, how it strengthens him, how it comforts him, how 
it composes him all over, both within and without, how it makes 
him changie the customs of the old man, how it alters all his 
affections and pleasures, how it makes him love that which he 
hated before, and hate that which he had before a love for, how 
it makes him relish that which before he looked on as unsavory, 
whilst at the same time he loathes that which he sought so much 
after before. Who can conceive what strength it gives him for 
fighting, what joy, what peace, what light for the knowing of the 
will of God, the vanity of the world, and the true value of spirit- 
ual things which he used to despise? But what is yet more 
wonderful than all the rest is, to see in how short a time all these 
things are performed ; for there is no necessity of spending sev- 
eral years in the schools of philosophy, nor of staying till we are 
old men, that age may help us to recover our senses and the 
mortifying our passions ; a man may be changed in the very heat 
and vigor of his youth, and in the space of a very few days, so as. 
to be scarce able to know himself. Therefore it was St. Cyprian 
said, " That this is a thing which may sooner be felt than learned ; 
and that it is not to be gained by many years' study, but by a turn 
of grace which produces it all in a very little time ;" St. Cypr. ad 
Donat. We may, therefore, call grace a kind of spiritual charm 
by which God changes men's hearts, to make them have a passionate 
love for those things which before they had a horror of, as, for 
example, the practice of the several virtues, and the greatest 
aversion imaginable to those things they desired so eagerly before, 
to wit, the delights and pleasures that are in sin. 



THE sinner's guide. 251 

22. This is one of the most considerable advantages those con- 
fessors gain by their function, who discharge it with true spirit 
and devotion ; for they daily see several of these miracles, by 
which God seems to requite the trouble they undergo in rendering 
him that service. And this return, which God makes them, is so 
generous that we have known several confessors changed them- 
selves by seeing such changes in others ; and these frequent ex- 
amples have been the occasions of their advancing in the way of 
virtue. So that these persons, whilst they are silent like another 
Jacob, hear Joseph's mysterious words, and value the same at their 
just rate, whilst the simple infant that relates, does not know what 
price to set upon them. 

23. But for the greater confirmation of what I have said, I will 
here add the example of two great saints, who lived in this same 
error for some time, but afterwards discovered the deceit. God 
has thought fit, that they should both of them leave us in writing 
an account of the same, for our instruction and example. The 
glorious martyr, St. Cyprian, writing to his dear friend Donatus, 
to acquaint him with the beginning and manner of his conversion, 
dehvers himself thus: — 

24. " During the time in which I walked in darkness and in 
an obscure night, when I was tossed up and down, like one in a 
storm by the inconstant waves of this world, and was sunk very 
deep into the mire, knowing nothing at all of my own course of 
life, and deprived of the fight of truth, I looked on all that as very 
hard to be effected, which God had promised me, in order to my 
salvation, which is, * That a man could be born again, and by 
the virtue of baptism receive a new fife, so as to be changed from 
what he was before, and he made a new man within, though 
the substance without remained still the same ;' John iu. 5. 
How, said I, is it possible, that such a conversion should hap- 
pen, as that we should immediately and on a sudden shake off 
that which has been a long time rooted in us, either by the 
corruption of our nature, or by long use and custom? How 
can he live sparingly, who has been used to keep a great table? 
When will he wear a plaui dress, who has been always clothed in 
silks and scarlet? He that has always carried a great retinue 
with him, and has been attended by a train of servants, will never 
endure to go by himself. He that has placed all his delight in 
great employments, can never live like a private man. He 
cannot but be always wrought on by those things he used to 
be charmed with ; intemperance will solicit him, pride will puff 
him up, anger will inflame him, covetousness torment him, cruelty 
press him, ambition please him, and lust hurry him blindl}^ away. 
I frequently reflected on these things with myself, for being en- 
gaged in so many different sins of my past life, which I thought 
I should never be freed from ; I myself encouraged the vices 
which stuck fast to me, and, despairing of ever growing better, I 



252 THE sinner's guide. 

favored my crimes as if they had been of my own house and 
family. But as soon as the stains and filth of my former life were 
washed off by the water of baptism, a heavenly light shone down 
upon my soul, now cleansed and purged from all its sins. As 
soon as I had received the Holy Ghost, I was, by the means of 
a second birth, so changed into a new man, that what I before 
doubted of, I immediately looked on as most certain ; what was 
shut up against me before, was immediately opened ; that which 
was dark became light ; I thought those things easy which before 
seemed to be so hard, and what used to seem impossible I looked 
on as quite contrary ; I saw clearly, that what was born of the 
flesh and liable to frequent failings, was earthly, and that what the 
Holy Ghost had animated, came from God, and not from man. 
You know very well, my dear Donatus, what this holy spirit has 
taken from me, and what he has bestowed on me ; he w^ho is the 
death of sin and the life of all kinds of virtues. You know all this, 
nor do I boast of any thing now ; it is odious to boast of such 
things for to get praise and commendation ; though for a man to 
talk of what he has received from the pure mercy of God, and 
v^hat he cannot by any means ascribe to himself, is so far from 
boasting, that, on the contrary, it is but justice and gratitude ; for 
it is plain, that the forsaking of sin is no less the effect of divine 
grace, than the committing of it is the effect of human frailty." 
S. Cypr. Ep. 2. L. 2. 

25. These are the words of St. Cyprian, which plainly discover 
the mistake that you and many are under, who, measuring the 
difficulty of virtue by their own strength, look on the acquiring 
of it as not only difficult, but impossible, and never so much as 
consider, that if they \\dll but cast themselves into the arms of 
God, and resolve fully to forsake their sins, he will receive them 
into his grace, which makes this w^ay so smooth, as appears by 
this example. For it is certain there is no falsehood in all this, 
nor will that grace be denied you, which was granted to this saint, 
if you will return to God as sincerely as he did. 

26. Hear another example, no less wonderful than the former. 
St. Augustine, in the eighth book of his Confessions, tells us, that 
he had no sooner began to think seriously with himself of leaving 
the world, but a great many difficulties offered themselves to him 
in this change ; whilst at the same time he thought, on the one 
side, that all his former pleasures came and stood before him, and 
said to him, " What, will you part with us, and shall we from 
this moment never see you again for all eternity ?" Conf. L. 8. c. 
11. On the other side, he said, that virtue appeared to him with 
a serene and cheerful countenance, accompanied with a great 
many good examples of virgins and widows, and of other per- 
sons who had lived chastely in all kinds of states and ages, and 
that they said to him, " Cannot you do as much as these men and 
women have done ? Have they done any thing of themselves ? 



THE sinner's guide. 253 

Is it not God that has done all in them? Whilst you rely on yourself, 
you must of necessity fall. Cast yourself on him, be not afraid, he 
will not go away from you, and let you fall ; cast yourself on him 
with confidence, he wall receive and cure you." Ibid. 

27. This great saint says, that as he was in the heat of this 
combat, he began to weep bitterly, and going a little aside, laid 
himself down under a fig-tree, and there giving way to his tears, 
cried out from the bottom of his heart, saying, "And thou, O 
Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, wilt thou be angry at me? 
Be not mindful of our past iniquities. How long, O Lord, how 
long will this to-morrow, to-morrow last ? Why not now ? Why 
shall there not be an end of my disorders this very hour?" Ibid, 
c. 12 ; Ps. Ixiv. ; xii. 1 ; Ps. Ixxviii. 8 ; Isa. Ixiv. 9. 

28. As soon as the saint had made an end of these and such 
complaints, he says, his heart was so changed on a sudden, that 
from that very moment he never had any further affection for the 
sins of the flesh, nor for the delights and pleasures of the world. 
On the contrary, he perceived his heart entirely freed from all its 
former irregular desires. And having recovered his liberty, he 
begins in his following book to thank his Deliverer, saying, " O 
Lord, I am thy servant ; I am thy servant, and the son of thy 
handmaid. Thou hast broken my bones asunder ; I will offer up 
to thee a sacrifice of praise. Let my heart and my tongue praise 
thee, and let all my bones say. Who is like unto thee, O Lord ?" 
Ps. Ixxxi. V. 2. Where has my free-will been for so manj^ years, 
O Jesus Christ, my Helper and my Redeemer, since it has not re- 
turned to thee ? From what deep abyss hast thou drawn it in a 
moment, that I might put my neck under an easy yoke, and my 
shoulders under thy light burden ? How am I on a sudden de- 
lighted with being deprived of the trifling pleasures I have so long 
run after, and what a satisfaction is it to me to part with those fol- 
lies I was afraid of losing before I Thou, O solid and chief delight, 
hast driven all those other false ones from me ; thou hast driven 
them away, and hast taken up their places ; thou art more delight- 
ful than all other delights, and more beautiful than all other beau- 
ties together." L. 9. c. 1 ; Ps. cxv. 16, 17. Thus far St. Augustine. 

29. Tell me now, since the case stands thus, and since the 
power and efficacy of God's grace is so great, what is there can 
still enslave and keep you from doing as much as this glorious saint 
has done ? If you believe that what I relate is true, that it 
is in the power of grace to work such a change as this of St. 
Augustine's, and that this grace is denied to no man that shall 
seek after it with his w^hole heart, God being the same now that 
he was then, without any respect of persons, w^hat hinders you 
from getting out of this miserable slavery, and from embracing 
this sovereign good, which is so freely offered you ? Why had you 
rather gain one paradise by another? Be not dejected nor dis- 

X 



254 THE sinner's guide. 

couraged. Try, once at least, whether this be true or not, and 
put your confidence in God, that as soon as ever you will begin, 
he will come and meet you, to receive you with open arms, as he 
did the prodigal son ; Luke xv. It is a strange thing that if a 
notorious cheat should teach you the art of finding out the phi- 
losopher's stone, or of turning brass into gold, you should endeavor 
to learn it, whatsoever it cost you ; and yet Almighty God here 
gives you his word, that he will teach you how you may change 
yourself from earth into heaven, from flesh into spirit, from a man 
into an angel, and you will not so much as try the experiment. 

30. In fine, since you must of necessity, either sooner or later, 
either in this life or in the next, acknowledge this truth, I beg of 
you that you would consider seriously how you will find yourself 
deceived at the making up of your accounts, when you shall see 
yourself damned for all eternity, for leaving the path of virtue, be- 
cause you falsely imagined that it was uneven and difficult ; you 
will then, but alas ! too late, perceive that it was a much more 
pleasant way than that of sin, and the only road that led to ever- 
lasting delight. 



CHAPTER V. 

Against those who refuse to walk in the Way of Virtue, hecause 

they love the World. 

1. If we did examine all those who refuse to w^alk in the way 
of virtue, we should perhaps find the deceitful love of this world 
to be one of the chief causes of their faint-heartedness. I call 
that love of the world deceitful, because it is grounded on a false, 
imaginary and apparent good, which seems to be in the things of 
the world, and makes ignorant persons set so great a value on 
them. For as creatures that are naturally timorous always avoid 
some particular objects, imagining there is danger in them, even 
when they are farthest from them ; so these men, on the contrary, 
love and run after the things of the world, because they fancy 
they are pleasant and delightful, though in reality they are not so. 
And, therefore, as those who would break such creatures of that 
imperfection, make them go close by these things they were afraid 
of, that they, may see they were frightened at nothmg but a shadow, 
so it is requisite now we should lead these persons through the mere 
shadows of worldly things they so passionately affect, that they 
may look on them with other eyes, and perceive how they had placed 
all their love on a mere vanity, and acknowledge that these false 
goods no more deserve to be beloved, than those dangers we have 
spoken of, deserve to be feared. 

2. If we, therefore, seriously reflect on the world and its happi- 
ness, we shall find these six kinds of evils in it, to wit, shortness. 



THE sinner's guide. 255 

rrnsery, danger, blindness, sin and deceit. These are the insepa- 
rable companions of all the world's felicity, which plainly show 
what it is. We will speak here briefly of each of these evils, ac- 
cording to their order. 

5 I. How short the Happiness of this World is. — 3. To begin 
with the shortness, you cannot deny but that all the happiness of 
this world, though ever so great, is but of short continuance ; for 
man's felicity can last no longer than his life. Now how long 
this life is, we all kriow, since the longest scarce ever arrives to 
the hundreth year. But how few are there that ever reach to this? 
I have seen bishops that have not lived above two months, popes 
that have not outlived one, and new-married persons that have 
died within a week after their marriage ; we read of a great many 
such examples in former times, and see as many at present every 
day. Put the case : your life may be one of the longest. " Let 
us grant (says St. Chrysostom) that a man may have a hundred 
years to spend in the pleasures of the world. To this let us add 
another hundred, nay, two hundred more, if you will — what is all 
this in respect of eternity?" "If," says Solomon, "a man should 
have a great many years, and during all this time should enjoy 
all kinds of pleasures, he ought to remember the time of darkness 
and the days of eternity, which, when they come, all that is past 
shall appear to have been vanity ;" Eccl. xi. 8. For all happi- 
ness whatever, let it be ever so great, will appear to be but vanity, 
as it really is, when compared with eternity. This is what even 
the wicked themselves confess, in the book of Wisdom, when 
they say, " We are no sooner born than we immediately ceased 
to be ;" Sap. v. 13. Consider how short all the time of this life 
will seem then to the vdcked ; they will imagine they have scarce 
lived one day ; they will think they were hurried away imme- 
diately from the womb to the grave. Whence it follows, that all 
the pleasures of this world will then seem to be only imaginary, 
and which appeared to be a pleasure, but were not so. The prophet 
Isaias has given us an excellent description of this in these words : 
" As a man that is hungry dreams that he eats, but when he 
awakes finds himself still empty ; and as a man that is thirsty 
dreams that he drinks, but after he is awake he still faints with 
thirst, and is as empty as he was ; so shall it fare with all the na- 
tions who have waged war against the mountain of Sion ;" Isa. 
xxix. 8. Their prosperity shall be so short, that as soon as ever 
they shall open their eyes, and this little time shall pass away, 
they shall find that all their joys were nothing but mere dreams. 
For what other name will you give to the glory of as many princes 
and emperors as have ever lived in the world ? " Where," says 
the prophet, " are the princes of the nations, and those who rule 
over the beasts of the earth, who sport themselves with the birds 
of the air?" Bar. iii. 16, 17. Where are thovse who have piled 
up mountains of silver and gold, in which they place their confi- 



256 THE sinner's guide. 

dence ? Where are all those who have taken so much pains in 
making rich vessels of gold and silver, that it is almost impossible 
to count all their different designs and inventions ? What is now 
become of all these persons ? where is it that they live ? They are 
now turned out of their palaces, they are thrown down into hell, 
and others have taken their places. What is become of the wise 
man ? What is become of the scholar ? What is become of him 
that used to search into the secrets of nature ? What is become 
of all Solomon's glory ? Where are now the mighty Alexander and 
the glorious Assuerus ? Where are all the famous Roman Ceesars? 
Where are all the other princes and kings of the earth ? What 
have they got by their vain-glory, by the power they had in the 
world, by the great nmnber of their attendants, by their false 
riches, by their mighty armies, by those crowds of buffoons, ot 
fawning parasites and flatterers, which were perpetually about 
them? All this has been nothing but a mere shadow, a mere 
dream, a fleeting happiness of but a moment's continuation. Con- 
sider, then, how short the happiness of this world is. 

§ II. Of the great Miseries worldly Delights are mixed with. 
— 4. This happiness, besides its being so short, has another evil, 
which is, that it is always attended by a thousand miseries not to 
be avoided in this life, or, to speak plainer, in this vale of tears, 
in this place of banishment, in this tempestuous sea. For the 
miseries which man perpetually lies open to are, in truth, many 
more than the days, nay, than even the hours of his life ; because 
every day ushers in fresh cares and solicitudes, and he is every 
hour threatened with new miseries, w^hich no tongue can be able 
to express. Who can count all the infirmities of our bodies, all 
the passions of our souls, all the afflictions caused by our very 
friends, with all the other disasters of our lives? One goes to law 
with you for your estate, another endeavours to take away your 
life, a third robs you of your reputation and honor ; some men 
pursue you with hatred, some with envy, some with fraud, some 
with designs of revenge, some with calumnies, some with arms, and 
others, in fine, wound you mortally with their tongues, more dan- 
gerous and more hurtful far than even arms are. Besides all these 
miseries, there is an infinity of others, for which we have no names, 
because they are unexpected accidents. One man has an eye thrust 
out, another has an arm cut off, another falls from a window, an- 
other from his horse, another is drowned, another loses his estate, 
another is ruined by being bound for friends. If you would know 
more of these miseries, ask the worldly man to give you a true ac- 
count of the pleasures and displeasures he had in his way of living. 
If they were both put into equal scales, you would see how much 
the one would outweigh the other, and how, for one jnoment of 
pleasure, there are a hundred hours of trouble and discontent. If 
therefore, man's whole hfe is so short, and so great a part of it filled 
with such miseries, what room can there be for true happiness ? 



THE sinner's guide. 257 

5. But as for these miseries which I have here reckoned up, 
they are such as happen to the good as well as to the bad ; for 
since they are all aboard the same vessel, and sailing in the same 
sea, they must needs be exposed to the same storms. There are 
other miseries which are more sensible than these, and particu- 
larly belonging to the wicked, as being the effect of their sins. 
The knowledge of these will be much more to our purpose, inas- 
much as it makes the lives of such men as are exposed to them 
more abominable. The wicked themselves inform us of the great- 
ness of them, in the book of Wisdom, saying, " We have been 
tired ia the way of iniquity and perdition ; our w^ays have been 
hard, and we have been ignorant of the way of the Lord ;" Sap. 
V. 7. So that as the good have a paradise even in this life, and 
hope for another in the next, and go from one sabbath to another, 
that is, from one joy to another ; so, on the contrary, the wicked 
have a hell in this life, and expect another in the next, because 
they go from the hell of a bad conscience to that of everlasting 
torments. 

6. These calamities happen to the wicked several ways. God 
sends them to some ; for he, as being a just Judge, will not per- 
mit the evil of the crime to pass over without the due punishment, 
which, though it be generally reserved for the next life, yet often 
begins in tlus. For it is certain that God's providence, as it is 
over the world in general, so is it over each person in particular. 
And, therefore, we see that when there are more than ordinary 
sins committed in the world, they are followed by more than or- 
dinary punishments, as famine, wars, plagues, heresies and such 
other calamities. It frequently happens, too, that God punishes 
man according to the sins which he is guilty of. For this reason 
be said to Cain, " If you do well, you shall receive the reward 
of it; but if you do ill, you shall find your sin at your door" 
(Gen. iv.) ; that is, the punishment which your sin deserves. And 
in Deuteronomy, Moses told the people of Israel, "You shall 
know that the Lord your God is a strong and faithful God, keep- 
ing his word, and showing his mercy to those that love him and 
keep his commandments, even to a thousand generations; and 
immediately punishing those that hate him, so that he destroys 
them, and does not defer any longer immediately giving them 
what they deserve ;" Deut. vii. 9, 10. Consider how many times 
in this place he repeats the word immediately ; hj which we may 
understand, that besides the punishment due to the wicked in the 
next life, they are often punished in this, since the Scripture in 
this place so often repeats that they shall be punished inomediately. 
This is the cause of the many calamities and torments they endure, 
still rollmg in a perpetual wheel of disquiets, fatigues, necessities 
and hardships. Now, supposing that they are sensible of them, 
yet they do not know from whence they come ; so that they look 

33 X2 



258 THE dinner's guide. 

on them rather as the necessary conditions of nature, than as 
punishments inflicted on them for their crimes. For as they do 
not reckon the common benefits of nature as the effects of God's 
mercy, and, therefore, do not thank him for them, so neither do 
they regard the calamities he sends them as the strokes of his 
anger, nor are they the better for them. 

- 7. Other miseries befall them, which come from God's vice- 
gerents, the ministers of his justice, who often meet with the 
wicked and punish them with imprisonments, banishments, fines, 
infamies, forfeiture of estates, and other kinds of torments, which 
make the pleasure of their sins prove bitter and dearly bought, 
even in this life. 

^ 8. Other pains and miseries are brought on them by the inor- 
dinate appetites and passions of their hearts ; for what can be ex- 
pected from an immoderate affection, from a vain fear, from a 
doubtful hope, from an irregular desire, from a solicitous sorrow, 
but a thousand cares and perplexities, which deprive them of the 
peace and liberty of heart, which make their whole life uneasy, 
which excite them to sin, which hinder them from praying, which 
disturb their rest in the day. Man himself, that is, the irregu- 
larity of his passions, is the cause of all these miseries. You may 
judge by this what he has to hope for from any thing else, who 
has such a harvest of his own as this is, and with whom he can be 
at peace, who is at such war with himself. 

§ III. Of the great Snares and Dangers of the World. — 9. 
If there were none but pains and torments of the body in the 
world, there would not be so much reason to fear ; but, alas! there 
are dangers of the soul much more to be apprehended, because 
they touch us more to the quick. These dangers are so great, 
that the royal prophet says, " God shall rain down snares upon 
sinners ;" Ps. x. 7. What a vast number of snares must he see 
in the world, to compare them to drops of rain ! He says ex- 
pressly ^' upon sinners," because, being so little watchful over their 
hearts and their thoughts, so unconcerned about avoiding the oc- 
casions of sin, and thinking so little of providing themselves with 
spiritual remedies, and, what is worse than all this, walking con- 
tinually in the midst of the flames of the world, how can they 
choose but walk among infinite dangers ? It is on account of these 
many dangers the prophet said, " that God will rain snares upon 
the wicked." ■ Snares in youth and snares in old age, snares in 
riches and snares in poverty, snares in honor and snares in dis- 
honor, snares in company and snares when a man is alone, snares 
in adversity and snares in prosperity ; in fine, every one of a man's 
senses, as the eyes, the ears, the tongue, and the rest, lay snares 
in his way. There are so many, in short, of these snares, that 
the prophet cries out aloud, saying, " Snares upon you, O inhab- 
itants of the earth ;" Jerem. xlviii. 43. Would God but open our 
eyes a little, as he did St. Anthony's, we should see all the w^orld 



THE sinner's guide. 259 

full of snares, entangled one in another, and should cry out with 
him, "O, who shall be able to avoid them all?" It is this that 
is the destruction of so many souls as perish every day. And, 
therefore, St. Bernard says, with tears, " that there is scarce one 
ship in ten cast away in the sea of Marseilles ;" whilst, on the con- 
trary, there is scarce one soul in ten that is not lost in the sea of 
this world. Who, then, will not fear so dangerous a world? who 
w^U not endeavor to avoid so many snares ? who can, without 
trembling, go barefoot among so many serpents? who will run 
unarmed amongst so many enemies, unprovided amongst so many- 
occasions of sin, without a medicine amongst so many mortal dis- 
eases ? who will not endeavor to get out of this Egypt ? who will 
not fly from this Babylon ? Exod. xii. Jerem. li. Who will not 
endeavor to be delivered from these flames of Sodom and Gomor- 
rah, and to save himself in the mountain of a good life ? Gen. xix. 
Since this world is full of so many snares and precipices, and burns 
in the flames of so many vices, who will think himself secure ? 
" Can any one (says the wise man) hide fire in his bosom, and 
his clothes not be burnt ? Or can he walk over hot coals without 
burning the bottom of his feet ?" Prov. vi. 27, 28. " He that 
toucheth pitch (says Ecclesiasticus) shall be defiled therewith, and 
he that hath fellowship with a proud man shall be like unto him ;" 
Eccl. xiii. 1. 

§ IV. Of the Blindness and Darkness of the World. — 10. To 
this infinite number of snares and dangers add another evil, which 
makes them greater, and is the blindness and darkness of worldly 
men, excellently represented to us by the Egyptian darkness, 
which was so thick that they could feel it ^vith their hands ; and 
during the three days it continued, no person stirred out of the 
place he was in, nor could see his neighbor, though he stood just 
by him ; Exod. x. Such, and much more, if possible, is the dark- 
ness that covers the world. For what greater blindness than for 
men to believe, and yet live as they do ? To make so much ac- 
count of their fellow creatures, and to take so little notice of God ? 
To be so careful of observing the laws of the world, and so neg- 
ligent in keeping God's commandments ? To take so much pains 
about the body, which is at best but dust, and to be so little con- 
cerned for the soul, which is no less than the image of the divine 
Majesty ? To lay up so much store for this life, which will perhaps 
be at an end to-morrow, and to provide nothing for the next, 
which must last for all eternity ? To be sohcitous about raising a 
fortune on earth, and not to move so much as one step for the 
acquiring of heavenly good ? What greater blindness than to live 
so negligently, as if life were never to end, when we know we are 
to die, and that moment to decide what shall be for ever ? For 
what is it that simiers, who are to die to-morrow, do less than if 
they were never to die at all? What greater blindness than to 
lose the inheritance of heaven for the satisfying of a hungry appe- 



260 THE sinner's guide. 

/ tite? To be so careful about an estate, and to have so little re- 
' gard for conscience ? To desire that all things should be good, 
except only a man's own life ? You will find the world so full of 
such blindness, that you will believe almost all mankind is en- 
chanted and bewitched, so as not to see, though they have eyes, 
nor hear, though they have ears ; and, though they are as sharp- 
sighted as eagles to discover the things of the earth, yet they are 
as blind as beetles to those of heaven. Thus it happened with St. 
Paul, when he went to persecute the church ; for as soon as ever 
he fell to the ground, he could see nothing, though he had his eyes 
open. This is what happens to all those unhappy wretches who, 
having their eyes w^ide open to the things of the world, yet keep 
them shut to all that is of God. 

§ Y. Of the Multitude of Sins there are in the World, — Since, 
therefore, there are so many snares in the world, and so much 
darkness, what can a man expect here but to be continually 
stumbling and falling ? Of all the miseries in the world this is the 
greatest, and that which ought to give us most aversion to it. 
This was the only argument St. Cyprian made use of, to persuade 
his friend to a contempt of the world ; L. 2. Ep. 2. ad Donat. 
He supposes, to this end, that they were both of them on the top 
of a very high mountain, from whence they had a prospect of all 
the world ; he pointed out to his friend, as it were, with his fin- 
ger, all the seas and all the countries, all the markets and all the 
courts of judicature, full of those several sins and injustices which 
are to be found in all parts ; that so beholding, as it were, with his 
eyes, so many and so great evils as there are in the world, he 
might understand what a horror and dread he ought to have of 
it, and how much he was obhged to Almighty God for having 
withdrawn him from them all. Do you, in imitation of this pro- 
ceeding, get up to the top of this same mountain, cast your eyes 
a little on all the market-places, all the palaces, all the courts and 
all the assemblies in the world, you will there see so many sorts 
of sin, so much corruption, so many detractions, so many cheats, 
so many perjuries, so many robberies, so much envy, so much 
flattery, so much vanity, and, above all, such an entire forgetful- 
ness of God, and so great a neglect of man's salvation, that you 
cannot but be amazed at so much disorder. You will see the 
greater part of men living like beasts, following the bent and im- 
pulse of their passions, without having any more regard to the 
laws, either of justice or of reason, than heathens, who have no 
knowledge of God, and who think man has nothing else to do but 
to live and die. You will see the innocent oppressed, the guilty 
acquitted, the virtuous condemned, and sinners honored and pro- 
moted. You will see the poor and humble trampled on, whilst 
favor and interest get the better in all things of virtue. You 
will see justice sold, truth slighted, shame lost, arts ruined, 
offices abused, and all sorts of employments, for the most part, 



THE sinner's guide. 261 

corrupted. You will see many knaves that deserve to be severely- 
punished for their villanies, become rich, honored, and courted, 
and this by their thefts, their cheats, and a thousand other unlaw- 
ful means. You will see these and many others, who have scarce 
any more than the shape of man, fiUing the greatest places and 
preferred to the most honorable employments. You will see, in 
fine that men love and adore their money more than they do God, 
whilst all laws, both divine and human, are violated ; and almost 
all the world over, there is nothing of justice to be seen, but the 
mere name and shadow of it. When you have seen all these 
things, you will understand how much reason the prophet had for 
saying, " The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the chil- 
dren of men, to see if there is any one that understands or seeks 
after God. But they are all gone astray and are become un- 
profitable : there is no body that does what is good, no, not so much 
as one." Ps. xiii. 2, 3. Nor does God complain less by his prophet 
Osee, when he says, " There is no truth, there is no mercy, there 
is no knowledge of God upon the earth." But, on the contrary, 
" malice, and lies, and man-slaughters, and thefts, and adulteries, 
are spread like water all over the face of it, and blood has followed 
blood." Osee iv. 1, 2. 

11. In fine, that you may the better see what the world is, 
cast your eyes on the head that governs it, and by that means you 
will perceive the condition of the thing so governed. For if 
it be true, as Jesus Christ said, that the devil is the prince of 
this world, that is, of wicked men, what must we expect from a 
body that has such a head, and from a commonwealth that has 
such a ruler ? This alone is enough to let you understand, that 
the world itself must be like those who are lovers of it. What 
kind of place, then must it be but a den of thieves, an army of 
cut-throats, a sty full of swine, a galley full of slaves, a lake full 
of serpents and basalisks ? Now if the world be such a thing as 
this, why, says a philosopher, shall we not desire to leave such a 
filthy place, so full of treacheries, deceits and sins, that there is 
scarce room left for honesty, piety or justice ? a place where all 
kinds of vices reign, where one brother takes up arms against 
another, where a son wishes for the death of his father, a hus- 
band for the death of his wife, and the wife for that of her 
husband? where there are so few persons, that do not 
either steal or cheat, since great men, as well as little ones, 
have their ways of robbing and defrauding, though under 
some specious pretences? where, in short, there are so many 
fires of lust, of impurity, of anger, ambition, and many other 
vices, continually burning? Who will not desire to fly from 
such a world ? It was, without doubt, the desire of the prophet, 
who cried out, " Who will carry me into the desert, or into some 
place that is out of the way of passengers, and I will forsake 
my people, and will retire from them, because they are all of 



262 THE sinner's guide. 

them adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men?" Jerem. v. 2. 
All that has been said of this matter hitherto belongs to the wicked 
in general, though no one can deny but there are several good men 
in the world, of all states and conditions, and it is for their sake 
that God bears with the rest. 

12. When you have weighed all these things, consider how 
reasonable it is to abhor and detest so great an evil, in which, 
had God but opened your eyes, you might have seen more devils, 
and more sins, than there are atoms in the rays of the sun ; and 
with this consideration nourish and increase in your souls the de- 
sire of leaving this world, in spirit at least ; sighing with the royal 
prophet, and saying with him, " Who will give me wings like a 
dove's and I will fly and take my rest ?" Ps. liv. 7. 

§ VI. How deceitful the Happiness of the World ds. — 13, 
These, and many more like them, are the disappointments and 
crosses that attend the wretched felicities of this w^orld, by which 
you may perceive how much more gall there is than honey, and 
how much more wormwood than sugar : I forbear to take notice 
of several other miseries. This happiness and delight, besides 
being so short and miserable, is also filthy, because it makes men 
carnal and impure : it is brutish, inasmuch as it makes men 
brutish ; it is foolish because it makes men fools, and often de- 
prives them of their sense and reason ; it is inconstant, because 
it never continues in the same state ; it is, in fine, treacherous 
and false, because, when we seem to want it most, it leaves us 
and vanishes into air. But I will not omit speaking of one evil 
that attends it, which perhaps is worse than all the rest, viz. its 
being fraudulent and deceitful, for it appears to be what it is not, 
and promises what it has not to give ; so that, by this means, it 
draws most men after it to their eternal ruin. For as there is true 
and false gold, as there are true and counterfeit jewels, which look 
as if they were of value and are not, so there are true and false 
goods, a true happiness and a false one, which are nothing at all 
of happiness, but the bare appearance. Such is the happiness 
of this world, which deceives and cheats us with its outside gloss 
and color. For as, according to Aristotle, it often happens that 
lies, notwithstanding their falsehood, have a ' greater appearance 
of truth, than even truth itself, so it is worth observing, that there 
are some evils, which, though they are real evils, look more like 
good than even some things that are really good." Such is the 
happiness of the world, and, therefore, ignorant persons are easily 
deluded by it, as birds are decoyed, and fishes caught with bait. 
It is the nature of worldly things to present themselves to us 
under a pleasant appearance, and with a flattering and deceitful 
look, which promises a deal of joy and satisfaction ; but as soon 
as experience has undeceived us, we perceive the hook was hid 
under the bait, and see clearly, that all is not gold that glitters. 
This, you will find by experience, happens in all worldly things. 



THE sinner's guide. 263 

Do but consider the pleasures of a new-married couple ; you will 
see their happiness generally last but for a few days, and then 
follow discontents, troubles and cares. They soon find afflictions 
from children, diseases, absence, jealousy, discord, miscarriages, 
misfortunes, grief, and, in fine, from death itself, which is inevi- 
table, and sometimes surprises them early, and changes their 
wedding joys, not yet completed, into the tears of widowhood. 
What greater deceit and hypocrisy than this ? How contentedly 
does a young woman go to the marriage-bed, because her eyes 
are only open to that which appears outwardly ; but alas ! how 
much more reason should she have to cry than laugh, if she did 
but see the train of miseries that follows ? Rebecca desired to 
have children ; but when she found herself pregnant, and perceived 
the conflict that was between the two infants in her womb, she 
said, " If this must have happened to me, what need was there of 
my conceiving ?" Gen. xxv. 22. O how many have been thus de- 
ceived, when, having obtained what they wished for, they find it 
to be quite another thing than what they expected I 

14. What shall I say of employments, of honors, preferments 
and dignities? How delightful they appear at first sight, yet 
"when the false lustre is w^orn off, what trains of passions and 
solicitudes, what envy, what hardships then discover themselves ! 
What shall I say, again, of those who are engaged in unlawful 
love ? How pleasant do they find the entrance into this dark 
labyrinth at the beginning! but when once they have got in, 
what hardships are they to undergo ! How many unhappy nights 
must they endure ! How many dangers must they expose them- 
selves to ! because the fruit of this forbidden tree is guarded by the 
fury of a' venomous dragon, that is, by the cruel sword, either of a 
parent or of a jealous husband, in which action a man often loses 
his life, his honor, his estate, and his soul all in a moment. You 
may, in like manner, take a view of the lives of covetous and 
worldly men, of those who aim at glory, either by their arms or by 
favor, and you will find, in all these, the tragical effects of fortu- 
nate and pleasant beginnings, which have been followed by unhappy 
ends. For the nature of this cup of Babylon is to be gilt without, 
but to be full of poison within ; Apoc. xvii. 4. 

15. What, then, is all the glory of the world but a siren's song, 
which lulls us asleep ? a sweet poison that carries death alon^ with 
it ? a viper, finely party-colored without, and full of venom within ? 
If it delights, it is only to deceive us ; if it raises us up, it is to 
cast us down again ; if it diverts us, it is to make us melancholy. 
It expects an unreasonable interest for whatever it bestows. If 
you have a child born, and it should happen to die, you w^ould 
be ten times more troubled at its death than you were pleased 
at its birth. Any loss is always the occasion of much more 
grief than gain is of joy ; sickness is much more afflicting than 
health is comforting ; an affront discontents a man more than 



264 THE sinner's guide. 

honor pleases or charms him : for nature has heen so unequal in 
disposing of pains and pleasures, that those are more able to tor- 
ment us, than these are to give us any ease and comfort. A thorough 
consideration of ail this will make us plainly see how false and de- 
ceitful this happiness is. 

^ VII. The Conclusion of all that has heen said. — 16. Con- 
sider here the true figure of the world, notwithstanding its out- 
ward appearing to be what it is not, and consider what its happi- 
ness is ; it is short, miserable, dangerous, blind and deceitful. If 
so, what can the world be but a magazine of labors, as a philoso- 
pher wisely terms it, a school of vanities, a market of deceit, a 
labyrinth of errors, a prison of darkness, a highway full of robbers, 
a muddy lake, and a sea that is in perpetual storm ? What is this 
w^orld but a barren soil, a field full of stones, a wood full of thorns, 
a green meadow full of snakes and serpents, a garden that has 
flowers, but no fruit, a river of tears, a fountain of cares, a sweet 
poison, a serious comedy, and a pleasing phrensy ? Are there any 
delights in it which are not false, or any miseries which are not 
real ? Its ease is full of troubles, its security has no grounds to 
build on, its fears are without reason, its labors without any advan- 
tage, its tears without any effect, its designs without success, its 
hope vain, its joy counterfeit, and its grief true. 

17. You see how lively a representation this world is of hell ; 
for if hell be nothing but a place of torments and of sin, what 
is there the world abounds in more ? The royal prophet was of 
this opinion, when he said, " His iniquity shall encompass him on 
all sides day and night, and labor and injustice shall be in the 
very middle of him;" Ps. liv. 11. This is the fruit the world 
produces, this the merchandise that is sold in it, this the trade that 
is settled in every corner of it, viz. labor and injustice, which are 
the evils of pain and the evils of guilt. If, therefore, hell is nothing 
but a place of torments and of guilt, why do we not call this world, 
in some measure at least, a hell, since we see so much of both in 
it? St. Bernard looked on it as such, when he said, "This world 
would appear to be almost as miserable as hell, if it were not for 
the hopes we have whilst we are in this life of obtaining a better;" 
Serm. 4. de Ascens. 

§ VIII. That true Felicity and Content are to he found no where 
hut in God. — 18. Having hitherto taken so clear a view of the mis- 
ery and deceit of worldly happiness, our next business will be to 
consider that the true happiness and rest, which the world cannot 
give us, is to be found in God. Were worldly men but thoroughly 
convinced of this, they would not, as they do now, take so much 
pains in pursuit of worldly pleasures. In short, my design, there- 
fore, is to prove the importance of this truth, not by the authorities 
and testimonies of faith, but purely by the force of reason. 

19. For effecting of this, you are to understand that no 
creature whatever can enjoy a complete and perfect happiness 



THE sinner's guide. 265 

till it obtains its last end, that is, the last perfection ■which is pro- 
portioned to its being and nature. For as long as it is without 
this, it cannot but be unquiet and dissatisfied, because it is sen- 
sible it wants something that is necessary for it. I put the ques- 
tion now, what man's last end is, on the possession of which all 
his felicity depends, and which divines call "his formal beati- 
tude." That this is God, is undeniable ; who, as he is his first 
beginning, so is he his last end. Now as it is impossible for a 
man to have two first beginnings, it is no less so to have two 
last ends, because this would be to have two gods. If, there- 
fore, God alone is man's last end and ultimate happiness, and 
if it is impossible for him to have two last ends, there is, con- 
sequently, the same impossibihty of his finding any happiness 
but in God. For as the glove is made for the hand, and the 
scabbard for the sword, so that there is no putting them to 
any other use; in like manner, man's heart, having been created 
for God, cannot find rest but in him. It is with him alone that 
he is content and satisfied, and without him poor and miserable. 
The reason of it is, because the understanding and the will, 
w^hich are the two noblest faculties, being the principal seat of 
bliss, whilst they are disturbed and uneasy, man camiot possibly 
enjoy peace and quiet. And it is a plain case that these two 
faculties cannot be at rest, but in the enjoyment of God. For, as 
says St. Thomas, " our understanding cannot know or imder- 
stand so much as not to be capable and desirous of knowing more, 
if there be more to be known ; so our will can never love or en- 
joy so many goods as not to be capable of more, if more be given 
it;" S. Thom. 1. 2. Qu. 2. Art. 8. Therefore these two powers 
will never be satisfied till they shall find a universal object, in 
which all things are contained ; and which, as soon as ever it was 
known and loved, there remain no more truths to be known, or 
more goods to be enjoyed. Hence it follows, that no created 
being whatsoever, though it were the possession of all the world, 
is able to find and satisfy man's heart ; there is none but God, 
for whom he was created, can do this. Thus Plutarch writes of 
a private soldier, who, from one elevation to another, came to be 
emperor ; and seeing himself raised to this honor he had so long 
desired, and yet wanting the satisfaction he expected, he said, 
" I have Hved in all states and conditions, and have found no 
satisfaction in any of them ;" by w^hich we may perceive it is 
impossible for him to find any rest but in God, who has been 
created for none but God. 

20. That you may understand this the better, look on the 
needle of the compass, and there you will see a lively figure of 
this necessary doctrine. The nature of this needle is to point 
always to the north, when it has been once touched to the load- 
stone : God, who created this stone, gave it such a natural incli- 
34 Y 



266 THE sinner's guide. 

nation to turn always that way. And you may see by experience 
what a violent motion it is in, and how restless, till it points ex- 
actly thither, and then it immediately stops and remains fixed. 
It is not to be doubted, but that God has created man with the 
same natural inclination and tendency toward him, as toward his 
pole, his centre and his last end ; and therefore it is, that, like 
the needle, he is continually disturbed and unquiet, as long as he 
is turned from God, though he should enjoy all the riches in the 
world : but as soon as, like the needle, he returns to him, he ceases 
from his violent motion, and enjoys perfect and entire rest, because 
it is in God he is to find his peace. Whence we may infer, that 
he alone is happy who possesses God ; and that the nearer a man 
is to God, the nearer he is to this happiness. And therefore the 
just, though the w^orld is unacquainted with their happiness, are 
the only happy men, because, w^hilst they are in this life, they 
draw as nigh as they can to Almighty God. 

21. The reason is, because true felicity does not consist in sen- 
sible and w^orldly pleasures, as the Epicurean philosophers would 
have it, and after them the Mahometans, and, lastly, the followers 
of both these sects, that is, wicked Christians, w^ho in words 
renounce the law of Mahomet, but follow it in their actions, and 
in this world seek no other paradise than his. For what is it the 
great and rich men of the world spend their time in, but in hunt- 
ing after all manner of pleasures and amusements; and what is this 
but to make Epicurus's pleasure our last end, and to look for 
Mahomet's paradise in this world ? O unhappy scholars of such 
masters ! If you detest the names of these men, why do you not 
hate their lives and manners ? If you will enjoy Mahomet's para- 
dise in this life, you must expect to lose our Saviour's in the next. 
Man's happiness does not consist either in the body, or in the 
goodness of it, as the Turks pretend, but in the spirit, and in 
spiritual and invisible goods, as was the opinion of the great phi- 
losophers of old, and it was what Christians still hold, though after 
quite another manner. 

The royal prophet signified the same to us, by these words : " All 
the glory of the king's daughter is within, where she glitters with 
gold, and is clothed with several colors" Ps. xliv. 14, 15); and 
where she enjoys so much peace and comfort, as never all the kings 
of the earth have had, or are ever like to have ; unless we will say, 
that they have more satisfaction than the friends of God ; which 
many of them will deny, who very cheerfully quitted great king- 
doms and riches as soon as they tasted of God. Pope Gregory 
the Great will also deny it, who had sufficient experience of both 
states, and was placed by*force in St. Peter's chair, on which he 
always sighed, and wept for the poor cell he left in his monastery, 
as a slave in Barbary sighs for his country and liberty. 

§ IX. Examples to prove all that has hem said. — 22. But 



THE sinner's guide. 267 

because this mistake is so great and so universal, I will add one 
reason more, as convincing as the former, that the lovers of the 
world may discover by it, how impossible it is to find that hap- 
piness they look for in the world. To this purpose you are to 
presuppose, that there is much more goes to the making of a thing 
perfect, than to leave it imperfect ; because, for effecting of the 
first, it must necessarily have all those conditions, which are abso- 
lutely requisite for its perfection ; whilst, on the contrary, any one 
single imperfection makes the whole piece imperfect. It is also to 
be presupposed, that a man must have all things according to his 
own desire, to make himself completely happy ; and that one thing 
contrary to his wish goes a great way further towards making 
him miserable, than the enjoyment of all the rest towards making 
him happy. I have myself seen several persons, of very consider- 
able rank and fortune, lead the most unhappy lives ; because the 
satisfaction they had in what they enjoyed was nothing comparable 
to the torment of not being able to obtain what they desired. For 
it is certain, that this latter, which is like a thorn stuck into the 
very heart, is more grievous and troublesome than the other is 
acceptable and pleasing ; for it is the obtaining of his desire, not 
the possession of goods, that makes a man happy. St. Augustine, 
in his Treatise of the Customs of the Church, explained this point 
very excellently, in these words : " I do not think a man can be 
said to be happy, who does not enjoy what he loves,, let 'it be ever 
so mean and ordinary ; nor do I look on that man any happier who 
does not love what he enjoys, though the thing be ever so good 
and excellent ; nor is he in a better condition than either of the 
other two, who does not desire that which is worth his desiring ; 
because he that cannot get what he desires, is in a deal of tor- 
ment ; he that has what is not w^orth his desiring, is notoriously 
cheated ; and he who does not desire that which is worth his de- 
siring, is a mere fool and madman. From whence we conclude, 
that our happiness depends upon the possessing of no other good 
but the sovereign good, without which there is no such thing as 
happiness." S. De Morib. Eccl. Cath. c. 3. So that possession, 
love and sovereign good, these three things put together, make a 
man completely happy, without which no man can be so, though 
he possesses ever so much. 

23. Though I could bring many examples to prove this, I will 
bring only that of Aman, king Assuerus's creature and favorite. 
This man, being highly offended, that Mardocheus, one of the 
guards at the palace-gate, did not pay him the respect he looked 
for, sent for all his friends and his wife, and made this short dis- 
course to them : " You all know what a rich man I am, how 
many children I have, and how much I am in favor with the 
king, and to what places and dignities he has promoted me, be- 
fore any of his courtiers or subjects. Besides all this, the queen 



268 THE sinner's guide. 

has invited none but the king and myself to come and dine with her 
to-morrow. And yet, though I have all these things, I seem to 
have nothing at all, as long as I see Mardocheus, who stands before 
the palace-gate, refusing me the respect I look for." Esther v. 
10, &c. Do but consider how this small affront was the occasion 
of much more discontent and trouble, than all his riches and honors 
were of happiness and satisfaction. Consider, likewise, how far 
man is from being happy, as long as he is in this world, and how 
near he is, on the contrary, to misery, since there are many goods 
required to the obtaining of the first, whilst the want of any one 
is enough to make us fall into the latter. Now if this be true, 
who can avoid being unhappy in this world ? Is there any king, 
any emperor, so powerful as to have all things according to his 
own will, and never to meet with any contrary to his inclinations ? 
Let us put the case : should he never receive any contradiction 
from men, who can secure himself against all the strokes of nature, 
against all the infirmities of the body, or all the fears or vain imagi- 
nations of the soul, which is frequently so apprehensive when there 
is no reason for it, and disturbs herself vdthout any cause ? Poor, 
unhappy, miserable man ! how can you think of finding any con- 
tent in the ways of the world, when it is more than what the 
greatest princes and monarchs of it have been ever able to do ? If 
all goods whatever must necessarily contribute to the acquiring of 
this one good, when shall you, who are at such a distance from God, 
ever be so happy as to stand in need of nothing in the world ? There 
is none but God can give you this happiness ; and if there be any 
man that does in some manner enjoy it in this life, know it is only 
he who loves and enjoys God ; because it is a condition of friend- 
ship, " that all things are in common amongst friends." 

24. If all these plain and evident reasons cannot convince you, 
but that you are more easily wrought upon by experience, address 
yourself to Solomon, so celebrated for his wisdom, and desire 
him, since he has sailed in this sea, and was more successful than 
any other in discovering all sorts of worldly grandeurs and de- 
lights, to give you an account of what he discovered, and whether 
he could find any thing that could satisfy him: and you shall 
have no other answer from him, but " vanity of vanities, vanity 
of vanities, and all is vanity ;" Eccles. i. 2, &c. c. xii. 8. Do 
not doubt to give credit to such an experienced man as Solomon 
was, who speaks to you not on bare speculation, but from certain 
knowledge; and do not think that you, or anyone else, could 
discover more than he has done. For what prince in the world 
was ever wiser, richer, better attended, more glorious or more 
reverenced than he? Who ever tried more different sorts of 
debaucheries and pleasures than he? And yet, after having 
tried all, he made no other advantage of them but what you have 
heard. Why will you make a fresh trial of what so many have 



THE sinner's guide. 269 

tried before you? Do not fancy you can find what Solomon 
could not ; since you have no other world to search in, nor any 
better means to find what you seek than he had ; and since he 
could never satisfy his longings from so plentiful a board, do not 
persuade yourself you shall ever be able to do it with the bare 
gleanings. Seeking pleasure was the employment of his time ; 
and it is very probable, as St. Jerome observes, in a letter of his 
to Eustochium, " that this was the occasion of his fall." And 
will you be so mad as to cast yourself headlong after him ? But 
because men rather believe experience than reason, therefore 
God has perhaps permitted this king to try all the goods and 
pleasures of this world, that he might, after trying, give us a 
character of them ; that thus the misery of one man might be an 
example to all the rest, and prevent their falhng into the like mis- 
fortune. 

25. Now if this be so, I may, with a deal of reason, exclaim 
with the prophet, " Sons of men, how long will you have your 
hearts hardened? Why do you love vanity, and seek after a lie?" 
Ps. xl. 3. He does well in giving it the name of vardty and a 
lie; because if there were nothing else in worldly things but 
vanity (which signifies no more than to be nothing), there were 
no great hurt in them ; but there is something still much worse 
than this, which is, a lie and a false appearance, by which we are 
persuaded to believe them something, when in effect they are 
just nothing. For this reason Solomon says, "that comeliness 
is deceitful, and beauty vain ;" Prov. xxxi. 30. To be vain had 
been no great matter, had it not been deceitful too; because 
vanity, when once known, can do but little harm ; the greatest 
danger is in that which truly and really is vain, though it does 
not appear to be so. By this we may see, how great a hypocrite 
the world is. For as hypocrites endeavor to hide the faults they 
have been guilty of, so the rich men of this world do all they 
can to conceal the miseries they continually groan under. Some, 
though they are sinners, would pass for saints, and others for 
happy men, though they are miserable. If you call this into 
question, do but come a little nearer to one of those, w^ho seems 
outwardly to be so happy ; feel his pulse a little, and then put 
your hands on his heart, and you will see what difference there 
is between that which appears on the outside, and that which is 
hid within. There are some plants in the fields w^hich look very 
pretty at a distance, but when you come and touch them, cast 
forth such an ungrateful smell, that a man is forced immediately 
to fling them away : thus, when the hands touch, they correct 
the mistake of the eyes. Such are most of the rich and mighty 
men of the world. For if you consider their great estates, their 
noble houses, and their retinues, you might take them to be the 
only happy men on earth ; but if you go a little nearer, and 
search into the recesses of their souls, and into the secret corners 

Y2 



270 THE sinner's guide. 

of their houses, you will find them not the same they seem to he. 
So that several of those, who at first aimed at great estates, when 
they considered them at a distance, no sooner had a nearer view 
of them, hut they entirely refused them, as many heathens (ac- 
cording to several histories) have done. And in the lives of the 
emperors we read, that there have not been wanting some who, 
notwithstanding their being heathens, have refused to accept of 
the empire, though they have been elected by the general consent 
of the whole army; and this because they knew that this flower, 
which seemed to be so fine and beautiful, had nothing but thorns 
and briars underneath it. 

26. Why, then, O ye children of men, who are created accord- 
ing to the likeness of God, who are redeemed with his blood, 
who are designed to be the companions of angels, why do you 
love vanity and seek after a lie, imagining with yourselves, that 
you shall receive any comfort from those false goods, which never 
were, nor ever mil be able to give you the least satisfaction ima- 
ginable ? Why have you left the table of angels for the food of 
beasts ? Why have you refused the dehghts and sweet smells of 
paradise for the bitterness and stench of this world ? How is it 
possible that so many calamities and miseries, as you are daily sen- 
sible of, should not suffice to make you deny any farther allegiance 
to so cruel a tyrant as this is ? We seem herein to be like certain 
lewd women, that give themselves entirely up to some debauched 
fellow, who devours and spends all they are worth, and then beats 
and kicks them every day, and yet they are fond of their slavery, 
and doat on him that makes it. 

27. Wherefore, from all that has been said, I conclude, that if 
there are so many reasons, so many examples, and so many expe- 
riments, to prove that the happiness and ease we look for in the 
world, is to be found no where but in God, why do we not seek 
for it in him ? It is what St. Augustine advises, in these words : 
" Compass the sea and earth, and go w^here you please ; but assure 
yourself, that wheresoever you go, you will be miserable, if you do 
not go to God." 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Conclusion of all that is contained in this First Book, 

1. We may plainly gather from all that has been hitherto said, 
that there is no kind of good whatever, which is not included in 
virtue ; which shows it to be so great and so universal a good, that 
there is nothing, either in heaven or earth, to which we can better 
compare it than to God himself. For as God is so universal a 
good, that the perfections of all other goods are found in him, so 
are they in some manner to be found in virtue. We see that, 



THE sinner's guide. 271 

amongst created things, some are modest, others beautiful ; some 
honorable, others profitable ; some are agreeable, and others, again, 
have several perfections ; now those of all are most perfect, and 
the most worthy of our love, which have the greatest share of all 
these different perfections. If this be true, what esteem, what 
love ought we to have for virtue, in which none of all these per- 
fections are wanting ? For if we consider modesty, what can be 
more modest than virtue, which is the very source and fountain 
of all modesty ? If we look for honor, what can deserve honor 
and respect, if virtue does not ? If we have an esteem for beauty, 
what can be more beautiful than virtue is ? Plato, speaking 
of its beauty, says, " that if we could but see it, it would draw 
the whole world after it." If we have any concern for profit, what 
can we expect any greater profit from than virtue, since it is by 
it that we are to acquire the chief good ? Length of days (with 
the good of eternity) is in its right hand, and riches and glory 
in its left ; Prov. iii. 16. If pleasure be all that you long for, 
what greater pleasure than that of a good conscience, of charity, of 
peace, of the liberty which the children of God enjoy, and of all the 
consolations of the Holy Ghost, who never fails to keep company 
with virtue ? If credit and reputation be the object of your aim, 
the just man shall he rememhered for all eternity, hut the name of 
the wicked shall grow rotten and vanish away like smoke ; Ps. iii, 
7 ; Prov. x. 7. If you seek for knowledge, what deeper know- 
ledge than knowing God, and understanding the best means foT 
directing of your life to your last end ? If we have a mind to 
gain the love and affection of men, what can be more lovely than 
virtue, or more conducible to this end ? For, according to Cicero, 
as beauty of body, which we so much admire, consists in the exact 
symmetry and due proportion of limbs and members, so from the 
exactness and regularity of life is formed such a beauty, as is not 
only agreeable to God and his angels, but even charms the wicked 
and man's greatest enemies. 

2. This is the good which is so absolutely and completely good, 
as not to have the least mixture of evil in it. It was with a deal 
of reason that God sent this short, but glorious embassy, to the 
just, which we have mentioned in the beginning of this book, and 
with which we are now going to conclude the same. Say to the 
just man, it is well ; Isa. iii. 10. Tell him he was born happilj'-, 
and shall die happily ; tell him he shall be blessed in his death, 
and in what is to come after it, as he has been in his life ; tell 
him he shall have success in all things, in his pleasures, in his 
pains, in his labors, in his rest, in his credit, and in his disgrace : 
because all things turn to the advantage of those who love God ; 
Rom. viii. 28. Tell him he has nothing to fear ; for though the 
whole world should be disturbed and troubled, though the ele- 
ments should be in confusion, and though the heavens themselves 
should fall in pieces, he may then lift up his head, because the 



272 THE sinner's guide. 

day of his redemption is at hand. Tell him it is well, because the 
greatest of all goods, which is God himself, is prepared for him, 
and because he is delivered from the company of the devil, which 
is the greatest evil of all. Tell him it is well, because his name is 
written in the book of hfe, because God the Father has adopted 
him for his son, because God the Son has taken him for his 
brother, and the Holy Ghost for his living temple. Tell him it is 
well, because the way he has taken, and the party he has followed, 
is advantageous to him in all respects, advantageous to the body 
and advantageous to the soul, advantageous in consideration of 
God, advantageous in consideration of men, advantageous for this 
life and for the next ; because all good things shall he bestowed 
upon those who seek the kingdom of God ; Luke xii. 31. And 
though perhaps his temporal affairs go not so well with him, yet 
this will turn much more to his advantage, if he does but take it 
patiently ; because to those that are patient, losses prove gains ; 
labors and sufferings are the occasions of merit, and combats 
bring crowns and trophies. As often as Laban lessened Jacob's 
wages, with an intention to benefit himself thereby, and to preju- 
dice his son-in-law, his design was thwarted ; and what he thought 
would benefit him and hurt the other, proved quite the contrary ; 
Gen. xxxi. 

3. Why, then, will you be so cruel to yourself, and so much your 
own enemy, as to refuse to embrace that thing which is every 
way so advantageous to you ? Can you take any better advice, or 
follow any better party than this ? Happy are the unspotted in 
the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Happy are those who 
search into his commandment, and seek him with their whole heart. 
Ps. cxviii. 1, 2. 

4. If, therefore, as the philosophers say, good is the object of 
our will, and if, of consequence, the better a thing is, the more it 
deserves our love, who has corrupted your will so as to make it 
neither relish nor enjoy so universal and so great a good ? O how 
much greater an esteem had king David of it, when he cried out, 
Thy law, Lord, is in the very midst of my heart ; Ps. xxxix. 9. 
Not in a corner, not on one side, but in the very middle, the 
most worthy and honorable place of all. As if he had said, this 
is my greatest treasure, this is the most important business I have, 
and the chief of all my concerns. Worldly men proceed in di- 
rect opposition to this, because vanity has the first place in their 
heart, and the law of God the last. But this holy man, notwith- 
standing his being a king, and having much to preserve and to lose, 
trampled all under his feet, and placed nothing but the law of God 
in the midst of his heart, as knowing that if he was but careful in 
the, keeping of this, all the rest w^as sufficiently secure. 

5. What can hinder you now from making a resolution to fol- 
low this example, and to embrace so great a good ? For if you 



THE sinner's guide. 273 

look on the obligation, is there any greater than what we all of 
us owe to Almighty God purely on account of what he is ? All 
other obhgations of the Avorld do not so much as deserve to be 
so called, if compared with this. If you look for benefits, what 
greater can there be than those we have received from him, since, 
besides his having created and redeemed us with his own blood, 
every thing either in us or out of us, as the body, soul, life, 
health, estate, grace (if we have it), every hour and moment of 
our lives, all the good designs and desires of our soul ; whatso- 
ever, in fine, has the name either of being or of good, proceed 
originally from him, who is the fountain of all beings and of all 
good. If interest be your aim, let all the angels and all mankind 
declare, whether we are capable of any greater interest than that 
of receiving eternal glory, and of being delivered from everlasting 
pains and torments ; for this is the reward of virtue. If we pre- 
tend to the enjoyment of present goods, what greater goods 
can we possess than those twelve privileges above mentioned, 
which all good men enjoy in this life, the least of which is much 
more able to content and please us than all the conditions and 
treasures of the w^orld I What more can we put into this balance 
than what is here promised us ? All the excuses worldly men are 
used to bring against us are now quite baffled, and I see no hole 
for them to creep out at, unless they wilfully and obstmately stop 
their ears and shut their eyes against so clear and manifest a truth. 

6. What, then, remains, but that, having seen the perfection and 
beauty of virtue, you repeat these words with the wise man, 
speaking of wisdom, virtue's sister and companion : / have loved 
her, and sought after her from my very youth, and I desire to have 
her for my spouse, and I was in love with her beauty. Her nobility 
appears, by God Almighty's familiarity luith her; and he who is 
the Lord of all things has loved her. She it is that teaches the 
doctrine of God, and that chooses his works. And if riches are 
desired in this life, what is richer than wisdom, who works all 
things ? But if wisdom does all things, can there be any thing 
more ijigenious than she is ? And if any one love justice, its 
works produce great virtues ; for it teaches temperance and pru- 
dence, justice and virtue, than which there is nothing profitable to 
men in this life. I have resolved, therefore, to take her for 
the companion of my life, as knowing that she will make me par- 
taker with her in her goods ; and she shall be my comfort in all 
my distress and trouble. Sap. viii. 2 — 10. These are the words 
of the wise man. What, then, remains but to conclude this 
matter, as the blessed martyr, St. Cyprian, concludes a most ele- 
gant epistle he writes to a friend of his, on the contempt of the 
world, as follows :■ — 

7. " There is (says he) but one quiet and tranquillity, but one 
solid and perpetual security, which is, when a man, being freed 

35 



274 THE sinner's guide. 

from the storms of this world, and laid up in the secure haven of 
salvation, lifts up his eyes from earth to heaven, and being already 
admitted into the company and favor of the Lord, is glad to see 
himself despise and undervalue from his heart whatever the world 
has such an esteem for. A man in such a condition cannot desire 
any thing in this world, because he is already greater than the 
world itself." And a little lower he goes on, saying, " There is 
no need of being very rich, or having any honorable employ- 
ments for the obtaining of this happiness ; it is a pure gift of God, 
bestowed on the devout soul ; for God is so liberal and free, that, 
as the sun heats, as the day gives light, as the fountain flows, and 
as the water falls down from a steep place, so this divine spirit 
communicates himself freely to all persons. For this reason do 
you, who are already listed in this heavenly army, use all your 
endeavors to be faithful in the observance of the discipline of 
this warfare, by acts of piety and devotion ; let prayer and holy 
reading be your continual companions; sometimes do you speak 
to God, and at other times hearken to what God has to say to you. 
Let him instruct you in his commandments ; let him have the dis- 
posing and ordering of all the concerns of your life ; let nobody 
look on him as a poor man whom God has once enriched. It is 
impossible for the soul to suffer hunger and thirst, that has been 
filled with the blessings and abundance of heavenly things. 
Then the most stately buildings, crusted over with marble and 
laid over with gold, shall be no more esteemed by you than dirt 
and clay ; then you will understand that your chief business is to 
adorn and beautify yourself, and that this is much the more mag- 
nificent and noble structure wherein God reposes, as in a living 
temple, and in which the Holy Ghost has taken up his habitation. 
Let us paint this building over, but let it be with innocence ; and 
let the lights of the painting be no others than those of justice. 
Time and age shall never be able to deface these colors ; and when 
the paint and gilding of the material wall shall be quite worn off*, 
these shall look as fresh and lively as ever. Artificial and mixed 
things are all frail and perishable, and they, in whose possession 
they are, can never assure themselves that they shall keep them 
long, because it is no true possession ; but this remains with its 
colors always lively, with its reputation untainted, and with a 
settled love and charity ; it cannot either decay or be blasted, 
though it may be improved or made more beautiful at the resur- 
rection." Epist. 1. 2. ep. 1. ad Donat. Thus far St. Cyprian. 

If any one, through the grace and inspiration of God, without 
which it is impossible for man to do the least good, is convinced 
and persuaded, by all the reasons and arguments we have brought 
in this book, so as to desire to embrace virtue, the following book 
will instruct him in what is to be done, for the obtaining of his 
desire. 

END OF THE FIRST BOOK. 



THE 



SINNER'S GUIDE. 



BOOK II. 



THE DOCTRINE OF VIRTUE ,- WITH NECESSARY INSTRUCTIONS AND 
ADVICE FOR MAKING A MAN VIRTUOUS. 



PREFACE. 

Forasmuch as it is not sufficient to persuade man to be vir- 
tuous, unless we teach him how to be so ; therefore, having, in the 
foregoing book, urged so many and such weighty reasons to ex- 
cite our hearts to the love of virtue, it will be requisite to come 
now to the use and practice of it, by giving such instructions as 
are necessary to make a man truly virtuous. And because, ac- 
cording to the saying of a wise man, the first virtue is to avoid 
all vice, after which a man may apply himself to the practice of 
virtue, w^e will, therefore, divide this book into two parts : in the 
first of which we will speak of the most usual or common vices, 
and the remedies against them ; and in the second, of the virtues. 
But before we enter on this point, we must lay dovm two princi- 
ples, which must be presupposed by him that resolves to follow 
this way. 

§ I. Of the, first Thing to he presupposed hy him that desires 
to serve God. — He that resolves to offer himself up to the service 
of God and to change his hfe, must, in the first place, and above 
all things, have a good opinion of the design he has in hand, and 
put such value on it as it deserves : I mean, that he should look 
upon this as the most important business, the greatest treasure he 
can have, as the best and most prudent action he can undertake. 
Nay, I would have him persuade himgelf there is no treasure, no 
other business, no other prudence in the world, but this : it is the 
advice the prophet gives us, when he says. Learn, Israel, 
where prudence, where strength, where understanding is, that 
you may at the same time know where length of life is, and an 
abundance of all things, where the light of the eyes and peace is ; 
Baruch iii. 14. God upon the same account says, by the prophet 

(275) 



276 THE sinner's guide. 

Jeremiah, Let not the wise man take a pride in his wisdom, let 
not the strong man take a pride in his riches ; hut he that takes a 
pride in any thing, let it be in his knowing and understanding me 
(Jerem. ix. 23, 24), for this is the sum of all goods. And if there 
is any one among the children of men, of a consummate wisdom, 
if he hath not this wisdom too, he shall not he esteemed at all ; 
Sap. ix. 6. 

2. The Holy Scripture, which so seriously recommends and 
praises this business to us, excites us to it in a very peculiar man- 
ner. It is this we are invited to by all creatures in heaven and 
earth, by the voice and cries of the church, by all kind of laws, 
both divine and human ; by the example of all the saints, who, 
being enlightened from heaven, despised the world, and pushed 
on the design they had of embracing virtue with such vigor and 
love, that many suffered themselves to be torn in pieces, to be 
broiled on gridirons, and to undergo a thousand torments, rather 
than commit the least offence against God, and be out of his 
favor, though but for a moment. It is this, in fine, that whatever 
has been treated of in the foregoing book, invites and obliges us 
to, because there is nothing there but what is in favor of virtue, 
and w^hat shows us of how inestimable a value it is. Each of 
these things, duly considered, is sufficient to convince us of the 
importance of this affair ; and if so, what effect should all of them 
together have on us ? So that he who resolves to follow virtue 
may by this perceive how great and how glorious a design he im- 
dertakes, and how reasonable it is, as we shall show hereafter, to 
give himself up entirely to it. Let this, therefore, be the first 
thing to be presupposed in this affair. 

§ II. Of the second Thing to he presupposed hy him that de- 
sires to serve God. — 1. The second thing to be presupposed is, 
that since it is a business of such worth and merit, you prosecute 
it wdth all the vigor imaginable, and with a resolution and steadi- 
ness to bear up against all the contradictions and difficulties you 
may probably meet vdth, in pursuit of your design. You are to 
look on all these troubles as little or nothing, in comparison with 
so glorious an undertaking as that you have in hand, and to consi- 
der that it is the order of nature, that the acquisition of any thing 
that is honorable should cost much labor. For no sooner 
should you resolve on this business, but hell itself will raise its 
power and forces against you. The flesh, which loves any thing 
that is dehghtful and charmmg, which from its birth is bent upon 
all kinds of evil, and has been so ever since it was first infected 
with the poison of the old venomous serpent, will continually and 
with much importunity press and invite you to all its usual de- 
lights and pleasures. Depraved custom, which is as strong as 
nature itself, will immediately oppose this change, and will re- 
present it to you as a thing very difficult. Because, as the turning 



THE sinner's guide. 277 

of a river from its ordinary course and channel is a laborious work, 
so the turning of a man out of the way, which evil custom has 
for a long time led him in, to make him take another, is, in some 
manner, as hard and toilsome. Besides, the world, that most 
powerful and cruel monster, armed with the authority of all the 
l3ad examples that are in it, will invite you with its pomps and 
vanities, tempt you with the evil practices of others, and frighten 
you with the persecutions and reproaches of the wicked ; and, as 
if all this were nothing, the devil, that cunning and old deceiver, 
will set on you, and, according to his custom with all that are 
newly converted, make his utmost efforts upon you, for forsaking 
his party. 

2. You are, then, to presuppose and conclude, you shall meet 
with all these difficulties and contradictions, that so, whenever 
they occur, you may not be surprised, but reflect on the advice of 
the wise man when he says, " My son, at your beginning to serve 
God, live in fear, and prepare your soul against temptation" (Eccl. 
ii. 1) ; and, therefore, you must not imagine you are invited to 
entertainments, to sports and pastimes, but that you are called on 
to take up the shield and spear, and to arm yourself for fight. For 
not^vithstanding the assurance we have of powerful assistance, it 
is not to be denied, but that there is always a great deal of diffi- 
culty at the beginning. 

He that resolves to serve God is to presuppose and to foresee 
all this, that so nothing may seem strange or unexpected to him ; 
and to be persuaded that the jewel he fights for is of such a value 
as to deserve much more than he can give for the purchase of it. 
And, lest all these enemies should discourage you, remember there 
are many more for you than against you ; because, though sin 
raises up all these adversaries, yet virtue comes in to your assist- 
ance, with more powerful succors. For you have God's grace 
against corrupt nature, God himself against the devil, good custom 
against bad, many good spirits against many evil ones ; you have 
the examples and exhortations of the saints, against the bad exam- 
ples and persecutions of the wicked ; and against the dehghts and 
pleasures of the world, you have the consolations of the Holy 
Ghost. It is plain, therefore, that each of those that are for you 
is stronger than his adversary. For grace is certainly stronger 
than nature, God than the devil, the good angels more powerful 
than the bad, and spiritual delights and pleasures incomparably 
more charming and more winning than sinful pleasures. 



278 THE sinner's guide. 



PART THE FIRST. 

WHICH TREATS OF VICES, AND OF THE REMEDIES TO BE APPLIED 

AGAINST THEM. 

CHAPTER I. 

Of the firm Resolution a good Christian is to make, never to 
commit any mortal Sin, 

1. These two principles being presupposed as the main foun- 
dations of this spiritual building, the first and chief thing which 
he that is seriously resolved to give himself up to God's service, 
and to the study of virtue, ought to do, is to fix in his soul a sin- 
cere resolution never to commit any mortal sin. For by this alone 
we lose the grace and friendship of our Lord, and with it many 
other favors and benefits. This is the chief basis of a virtuous 
life ; by this we are to keep ourselves in God's favor, and to pre- 
serve his friendship, and the right we have to the kingdom of 
heaven. In this consists charity, and the spiritual life of the soul 
depends on it. It is this makes men the children of God, the tem- 
ples of the Holy Ghost, and the living members of Jesus Christ ; 
and, consequently, as such, partakers of all the privileges of the 
church. As long as the soul keeps this resolution, she remains in 
charity and in the state of grace ; but as soon as ever she falls 
from it, she is immediately blotted out of the book of life, and 
put down in that of perdition, and banished into the kingdom of 
darkness. 

2. This matter being duly considered, it appears that, as all 
things, whether natural or artificial, are composed of substance and 
accidents, with this difference, that the substance always remains, 
though the accidents be changed ; as a house is said to be still 
standing (when the carved work and painting is quite defaced), 
though not so perfect as it was at first ; but when the house falls, 
all fall ; so the soul, as long as it stands firmly to this resolution, 
still retains the substance of virtue ; but when once this fails, all 
the structure falls to the ground : the reason of it is, because the 
whole, being of a virtuous life, consists in charity, that is, in loving 
God above all things. And he loves God after this manner, who 
hates mortal sin above all things ; there being nothing but this that 
can make a man lose the love and friendship of God. So that as 
there is nothing more injurious than adultery to a marriage-bed, 
there is nothing more prejudicial to, and more destructive of a 
virtuous life, than mortal sin, because it destroys charity, which 
maintains and nourishes life. 

3. This is the reason why all the martyrs willingly endured 



THE sinner's guide. 279 

such dreadful torments ; for this cause they suffered themselves to 
be burned, to be impaled alive, to be racked, to have their flesh 
pulled off with pincers, and to be torn in pieces rather than com- 
mit a mortal sin, which would in a moment have deprived them 
of the friendship and grace of God. They knew that if they had 
sinned niortally, they might have repented of their crime and have 
obtained pardon, as St. Peter did for denying our Saviour ; and yet 
they rather chose to undergo all the torments in the w^orld, than to 
be ever so short a space out of God's favor. 

4. We have three great examples of this sort in three noble 
women ; one in the Old Testament, the mother of seven sons, and 
two in the New, called Felicitas and Symphorosa, who had also 
each of them seven sons. These holy women were all of them 
present at the sufferings and martyrdoms of their own children, 
and were so far from being frightened at the lamentable sight, 
w^hen they beheld them torn in pieces before their faces, that, on 
the contrary, they exhorted and encouraged them to die bravely 
for the faith and service of God ; and gave up their own lives with 
them, with courage and resolution, for the same cause. 

5. St. Jerome, in his Life of St. Paul, the first hermit, gives 
us an example (I am doubtful whether not preferable to these) 
of a young man, whom, after ha\dng tried all other means, the 
tyrants would have forced to offend God ; and to this purpose they 
laid him on his naked back on a soft bed, under a shade of trees, 
in a very fresh and pleasant garden, tying down his arms and his 
hands with silken cords, that he might neither fly nor defend 
himself; then they sent a lewd woman to him, richly dressed, to 
use all the arts they could think of, to overcome his resolution 
and constancy. What could the soldier of Christ do in this distress ? 
What course could he take to avoid such a disgrace, when he was 
naked, and had his hands and feet tied ? Yet the power of Heaven, 
and the presence of the Holy Ghost, did not forsake him ; for he 
was immediately inspired to deliver himself from his present dan- 
ger, by a stratagem more strange and heroic than any we read 
of either in the Greek or Roman historians. For out of the 
great fear he had of offending God, and out of the horror of sin, 
he bit off his tongue with his teeth, the only part of him then at 
liljerty, and spit it into the impudent woman's face : thus, by so 
strange and unheard-of an action, terrifying and obliging her to 
fly, and at the same time cooling the natural heat of the flesh by 
the pain he put it to. This is sufficient to let us briefly see, to 
what a degree all the saints have hated and abhorred mortal sin. 
I could here give you the examples of some persons, who rolled 
themselves quite naked among briers and thorns ; and of others 
who have flung themselves into the snow, in the very depth of 
wdnter, to quench the fire of lust, which the enemy had kindled in 
them. 



280 THE sinner's guide. 

6. He, therefore, that designs to walk in the same path, must 
endeavor to fix this resolution deep in his soul, esteeming the 
friendship of God more than all the treasures of the world, and 
choosing, when occasion offers, to part freely with things of small 
value, for those that are of inestimable worth. Let this be the 
very basis of his life ; it is to this all his actions are to tend ; it is 
what he ought to beg earnestly of God in all his prayers ; it is 
for this he is to frequent the sacraments ; this is the fruit he must 
reap, by hearing sermons and reading good books ; it is the lesson 
he is to learn from the form and beauty of the world, with all the 
creatures that are in it. This is the chief benefit he is to make of 
the passion of our Saviour, and of all the rest of the Almighty's 
favors and graces, to wit, never to offend him to whom he is so 
infinitely indebted ; and it is this holy fear and firm resolution by 
which he is to measure his progress in virtue, looking on himself 
to have advanced so much the more or less, as he has been the 
more or less observant of his resolution. 

7. And as a man that would drive a nail up to the head, is not 
content to give it three or four strokes, but continues hammering 
till he has drove it in ; so it is not enough to make this resolution 
any how, but a man must endeavor every day to apply whatsoever 
he shall see, hear, read or meditate on, to his further advance in 
the love of God, and in detestation of sin ; because the greater pro- 
gress he makes in this hatred, the more forward he advances in 
that love, and consequently in all sorts of virtue. 

8. He is, for his greater confirmation in this design, to be tho- 
roughly convinced, that if all the ill accidents and all the pains that 
have ever been in the world, from its creation to this very day, 
with all the torments that the damned suffer in hell, were put to- 
gether in one scale, and mortal sin into another, this would, with- 
out doubt, weigh down all the torments, as being a much greater 
evil, and, by consequence, such a one as deserves more to be avoided 
than all these pains and torments ; though the dreadful blindness 
and darkness of this Egypt make men imagine these things to be 
quite different from what they are in ieffect. But, after all, what 
wonder is it, that neither the blind should see so great an evil, nor 
the dead be sensible of so deep a wound, since it is impossible for 
the blind to see any thing, though ever so great, or for the dead to 
feel any wound, though it be mortal? 

§ I. — 9. The subject of this second book being the doctrine 
of virtue, to which sin is directly opposite, the first part of it 
shall be spent in treating of the horror w^e ought to have of it, 
and of such particular remedies as may be applied to it ; because, 
if we can but once root these bad weeds out of the soul, it will 
be no hard matter to set the plants of virtues in their places ; 
whereof we will treat in the second part. We will seek here, 
not only of mortal but of venial sins ; not that these take away 



THE sinner's guide. 281 

the life of the soul, but because they weaken and dispose it for 
death. And for this same reason we will here speak of the seven 
capital or deadly sins, which are the very heads and sources of all 
others ; not that they always happen to be mortal, but that they 
very often are so, when a commandment of God or of the church 
is broken, or any thing done contrary to charity. 

10. In this doctrine, he that finds himself powerfully tempted 
by any vice may find remedies for all his distempers. Some of 
them, it is true, are general against all kinds of sins spoken of in 
the Memorial of a Christian Life, where I have given fifteen or 
sixteen remedies against sin ; others are particular and applicable 
only to particular sins, as to pride, covetousness, anger and the 
like. These are what we shall treat of at present, by applying to 
every peculiar vice its proper remedy, and by furnishing those 
persons, who are resolved to fight against sin, with spiritual 
w^eapons. 

li. But you must here carefully observe, that, for fighting of 
this battle, we have more need of eyes to see what is done, than 
of hands to fight, or feet to run away. The eyes are the chief 
weapons man can use in this war, which is carried on, not against 
flesh and blood, but against the evil angels, which are spiritual 
creatures. The reason of this is, because the very first root of 
all sin is the error and deceit of the understanding, which coun- 
sels and directs the will ; and, therefore, our adversary's chief en- 
deavor is to pervert the understanding. For if this be perverted, 
the will, which is governed by it, must necessarily go the same 
way. For the better effecting of this, they color evil over with the 
appearance of good, and make vice pass for virtue, and cover 
the temptation so cunningly, that it appears to be necessity and 
reason, not a temptation. So that if, for example, they have a 
mind to tempt us by ambition, avarice, anger, or the desire of 
revenge, they endeavour to make us believe it is highly reason- 
able to desire what we do, and that to do the contrary would be 
to act against reason. Thus they make reason serve as a cloak to 
the temptation, that so they may by this means the better deceive 
even those who follow the dictates of reason. It is necessary, 
therefore, on this account, that a man should have eyes to discover 
the hook, which hes under the bait, and not to be deceived by the 
base form and appearance of good. 

12. It is also requisite to have eyes here, to see the malice, the 
deformity, the danger, the losses, and all other inconveniences, 
which the vice we are tempted to perpetually carries along w^th 
it, that so we may keep our appetite in, and be afraid to taste 
that which, if once tasted, will infallibly be death to us. For 
this reason the mysterious animals in Ezekiel, which are the 
figures of the saints, were full of eyes all over, though their other 
members were but single, to give us to understand how necessary 
ob Z 2 



282 THE sinner's guide. 

these spiritual eyes are to the servants of God, to secure them 
against the snares of vice ; Ezek. ii. This is the chief remedy we 
shall make use of on this occasion ; to which we will join all others, 
that may be thought any ways necessary, as will appear hereafter. 



CHAPTER II. 

Remedies against Pride, 

1. Having promised in this first part to treat of vices, and their 
different remedies, we will begin with these seven, which are called 
capital, because they are the heads and sources of all the rest. 
For if we can but pluck up these seven vices (whence all others 
proceed) by the roots, the rest, which have sprung up from them, 
must of necessity perish ; as all the branches of a tree die when 
the root from w^hich they received the sap that nourished them, is 
cut up. This was the occasion of Cassian's taking so much pains 
in writing his eight books against these vices (which has also been 
done by several other grave authors), because he was thoroughly 
convinced, that if these enemies were defeated, none of the rest 
would be able to make any resistance. 

2. The reason of it, as St. Thomas writes, is, because all sins 
originally proceed from self-love, for they are all committed 
through a desire of some particular good this self-love makes us 
covet ; 1. 2. 9. 77. Part. 4. From this love springs those three 
branches, which St. John speaks of in his canonical epistle, to 
wit, " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of 
life" (1 John ii. 16) ; which, to speak plainer, are nothing else but 
the love of pleasures, the love of riches, and the love of honor ; 
because from the first love proceed these three, and all others 
come from them ; for from the love of pleasures arise three capi- 
tal vices, luxury, gluttony and sloth. From the love of honor 
comes pride, and covetousness from the love of riches. And as 
for the other two, anger and envy, they serve every one of these 
unlawful loves. For anger is caused by meeting with any ob- 
struction in the obtaining of what we desire ; and when another 
gets that which self-love desired for itself, then envy is excited. 
Since, therefore, these are the three universal roots of all evils, 
from which these seven vices proceed, it follows of course, that if 
we can but overcome these seven, all the others must be routed. 
We ought, for this reason, to employ all our strength in fighting 
with these mighty giants, if we have a mind to subdue all those 
other enemies, which have taken the land of promise from us. 

3. The first and most considerable of them is pride, which is 
an inordinate desire of excelling. It is the common opinion of 
holy writers, that this vice is the mother and queen of all the 



THE sinner's guide. 283 

rest ; and for this reason, holy Tobias, amongst much other good 
counsel which he gave liis son, advised him particularly against 
this vice, saying, " Never permit any pride to rule over your 
thoughts, or over your discourse ; for our perdition took its be- 
ginning from it ;" Tob. iv. 34. As often, therefore, as this pes- 
tilential vice shall tempt you, you may defend yourself against it 
by the following considerations. 

4. First of all, consider the dreadful punishment God inflicted 
on the bad angels for their pride and insolence; they were flung 
headlong out of heaven in a moment, and cast into the bottomless 
pit of hell. Consider how this vice darkened and obscured him 
who but just before shone brighter than all the stars of heaven, 
and made not only a devil, but even the worst of devils, of him, 
who before was not only an angel, but the prince of angels. If 
the angels were treated in this manner, what will become of you, 
who are nothing but dust and ashes ? For neither is God contrary 
to himself, nor is there w^ith him any respect of persons. Pride 
is as odious to him in a man as in an angel, and humility, on the 
other side, as acceptable. It was this gave occasion to St. Augus- 
tine to say, " that humility makes angels of men, and that pride 
makes devils of angels ;" Tom. 12. ad Etras in semo. And St. 
Bernard, for the same reason, says, " That pride humbles a per- 
son down from the highest degree to the lowest. The angels, 
for being proud in heaven, were cast down into hell ; and man, 
for being humble on earth, is raised above the stars of heaven." 
Septem. c. 2. 

5. With this severe punishment inflicted on pride, consider the 
example which the Son of God has given you of an inconceivable 
humility, who has taken on him a nature so much beneath his 
own, for the love of you, and has for the same reason been obe- 
dient to his Fathei', unto death, nay even to the death of the 
cross ; Phil. ii. 8. Base and miserable man ! let the example of 
your God here teach you obedience ; learn from him, O earth ! 
to humble yourself; learn from him, O dust ! to look on yourself 
as nothing ; learn, O Christian I from your Lord and God, who 
was meek and humble of heart ; Matt. xi. 29. If you think it 
below you to imitate the examples of other men, do not think it 
below you to imitate that of God, who became man as well to 
humble as to redeem us. 

6. Cast your eyes on yourself, and you will there find motives 
enough of humihty. Do but consider what you were before 
you were born, what you are since you have been born, and 
what you are like to be after your death. Before your birth, you 
were a filthy matter unworthy to be named ; at present you are 
a dunghill covered with snow, and in a short time will be meat 
for worms. What have you now, O man, to be proud of? You 
whose birth is sin, whose hfe is misery, and whose end is rot- 



284 THE sinner's guide. 

tenness and corruption ! If the temporal riches you possess are 
the subject of your pride, stay but a moment, death will come 
and make us all equal. For as we are all born equal as to our 
natural condition, so we shall all die equal according to the com- 
mon necessity of mankind, wdth this only difference, that they 
who have had the most here, will have the largest accounts to 
make up after death. Whereupon St. Chrysostom, speaking to 
the same purpose, says, "Consider seriously the graves of the 
dead, and find, if you can, the least marks of all that splendor 
and magnificence they lived in, or of the riches and pleasures 
they enjoyed. Tell me now w^hat is become of their rich fur- 
niture and costly clothes? where are all their sports and pastimes? 
what have they done with all their servants and attendants ? their 
sumptuous entertainments, their merriments, their jests and worldly 
mirth are now all over : Do but go near any one of their graves, 
and you will find nothing but dust and ashes, with worms and 
rotten bones." This, therefore, is the end their bodies are to come 
to, how tenderly and nicely soever they have been treated. And 
I wish there were no evil beyond or greater than this. But this is 
not all: there is something follows, that is much more to be 
apprehended: it is the dreadful tribunal of the Divine Justice, 
the sentence which will be passed there, the weeping and gnash- 
ing of teeth, the never-dying worm, which bites and gnaws the 
consciences, and the fire which shall never be extinguished. 

7. Consider the danger of vain-glory, pride's daughter, of 
which St. Bernard speaking, says, "It flies hghtly, it enters 
lightly, but it wounds not lightly;" Serm. 6. in Psalm Qui habitat. 
For this reason you ought, whenever men commend or respect 
you, to consider immediately whether you really have those 
qualities they commend you for or not. For if you have not, you 
have no reason at all to be proud ; but if you should perhaps have 
them, say with the apostle, " By the grace of God I am what I 
am ;" 1 Cor. xv. 10. So that you have no reason to be proud on 
that account, but, on the contrary, to humble yourself, and to 
praise God, to whom you are indebted for all you have, that by 
this means make yourself not unworthy of what he has been 
pleased to bestow on you; for it is certain, that the respect 
w^hich men pay to you, and the reason for their doing so, comes 
from God ; and, therefore, you rob God of as much honor as 
you appropriate to yourself. Can any servant be more unfaithful 
than he that steals his master's glory ? Consider, further, what 
a folly and madness it is to rate your worth and merit according 
to the opinion and esteem of men, who have the liberty of turning 
the scale which way they please, of taking away in a short time 
what they now give you, and of stripping you of the honor they 
at present afford you. If you build your reputation on what they 
say of you to-day, perhaps you will be a great man, as mean 



THE sinner's guide. 285 

to-morrow, and next day nothing at all ; just as a company of in- 
constant and changeable men shall think fit to talk of you. Your 
business, therefore, is, never to value yourself on the commenda- 
tions others give you, but only on what you know of yourself. 
And though they should cry you up to the very skies, hearken at 
the same time to what your conscience says, and be persuaded, 
that you are better acquainted with yourself than other men are, 
who have only a distant view of you, and can judge of you by 
nothing else but by what they hear. Take no notice of what men 
say or think of you, but commit your honor and glory into God's 
hands ; he is wise enough to lay it up for you, and faithful enough 
to give it you back again. 

8. Consider also, O ambitious man, what dangers the desire 
you have of commanding others exposes you to. For how shall 
you be able to command others, who have not yet learned to 
obey ? What account shall you be able to give Almighty God of 
many others, when you are scarce able to answer for yourself? 
Consider what a hazard you run, by adding to your own those 
persons' sins who are committed to your care ; for they will be 
all placed to your account. For this reason the Scripture says 
" That those who are the ministers of justice shall have severe 
sentence passed against them, and that the mighty shall be 
mightily tormented ;" Sap. vi. 6, 7. Besides, who is able to 
express the cares and troubles those persons live in who have 
many others to look after ? We have an excellent example hereof 
in a certain king, w^ho, just as he was going to be crowned, took 
the crown in his hands before they placed it on his head, and, 
having looked steadfastly on it for a while, cried out, " O crown, 
much more thorny than rich I if a man did but know thee thor- 
oughly, he would never stoop to take thee up, though he found 
thee lying on the ground." 

9. Consider once again, O proud man, that your pride is ac- 
ceptable to no person. It is not acceptable to God, because he is 
your enemy ; for " he resists the proud, and gives grace to the 
humble ;" 1 Pet. v. 5. It cannot but be odious to the humble, 
because every body sees what a horror they have of any thing 
that is proud and haughty ; nor will those who are themselves as 
proud as you hke it, because they hate you on the very same ac- 
count that you value yourself, and can endure none that is 
greater than they are. And what is worst of all, you will never 
be satisfied with yourself in this world, if you do not but enter 
into yourself and reflect on your own vanity and folly ; and you 
will have much less contentment in the next world, when you 
shall be condemned, in punishment of your pride, to eternal 
torments. God confirms this by the mouth of St. Bernard, when 
he says, " O man, if you were but thoroughly acquainted with 
yourself, you would be disagreeable to yourself, and thereon agree- 



286 THE sinner's guide. 

able to me ; but for want of knowing yourself, you are puffed 
up with pride, and therefore it is that I hate you." The time 
will come when you will neither please yourself nor me ; you 
will not please me, because of the crimes you have committed, 
nor yourself, because of the torments you shall be condemned to 
for all eternity. There is none but the devil, that approves your 
pride ; it was this changed him into a most hideous and deformed 
spirit, from a most glorious and beautiful angel, and, therefore, 
it is natural to him to be pleased when he sees others like him- 
self. 

10. Another motive you may use for humbling of yourself, is 
the consideration of the small services you have done God, such 
at least as are sincere and true, and consequently the little favor 
you are to expect from him ; for there are many vices hid under 
the appearance of virtue, and very often those actions which are 
good of themselves are spoiled by the pride we take in them ; 
and what men imagine to be as bright as noon-day, frequently 
proves to be dark as night before God. This most just Judge 
makes another judgment of things than we do; and an humble 
sinner is not so odious to him as a proud just man, though we 
cannot properly call him just who is proud. But after all, let 
us suppose, that you have done some good works ; do but call to 
mind the ill actions you have been guilty of, and you will find 
they far outweigh the other, nay, perhaps you will find the good 
you have done has been so faulty and imperfect, that there 
would be much more reason to ask pardon than to pretend to any 
reward for it. And, therefore, St. Augustine said, " Wo to a 
virtuous life, if God should lay aside his mercy when he examines 
into it" (St. Aug. L. 9. Cor. c. 13) ; because it is not at all im- 
probable, that he may condemn it, for those very things we thought 
would please him ; for the evil actions we commit are entirely and 
purely evil, but the good we do are not always perfectly and 
absolutely good, being frequently mixed with a great many imper- 
fections. This, duly considered will make you acknowledge that 
it is far more reasonable to fear than to value yourself on your 
good works. Job, holy as he was, dreaded it, when he said, " I 
know, O God, that thou dost not spare him that sins, and there- 
fore I was afraid of all my works ;" Job. ix. 28. 

§ I. Of some other more particular Remedies against Pride. — 
11. But because the knowledge of man's self is the chief founda- 
tion of humility, so that of pride is man's ignorance of himself ; 
whosoever has a mind to be truly humble must endeavor to ac- 
quire this knowledge, and by this means he will know how to 
humble himself. For how can he choose but have a mean opinion 
of himself, when, looking into his own breast without partiality, 
by the light of truth, he finds himself full of sins, defiled all over 
with the dregs of carnal pleasures, under a thousand mistakes and 



THE sinner's guide. 287 

errors, scared with a thousand idle frights and fancies, entangled 
in a thousand perplexities, pressed down by the weight of a mortal 
body, so forward to all kind of evil, and so backward to any thing 
that is good ? So that if you examine yourself with due care and 
attention, you will be easily convinced that you have nothing in 
you to be proud of. 

12. But there are some who, though on looking into themselves 
they are humbled, yet they grow proud by looking on others, 
finding themselves on comparison better than they. They who 
are puffed up on this account ought to consider, that if they are 
better than others in some things, there are many other things, 
in which, did they perfectly understand themselves, they would 
see those others are better than they. Why, therefore, should 
you have a good opinion of yourself, and despise your neighbor, 
for being more abstemious or more laborious than he is, when, 
though you excel him in these virtues, he is, perhaps, more 
humble, more prudent, more patient or more charitable than 
you ? So that it is your business to look not so much upon what 
you have, as upon what you want, and to take more notice of 
those virtues you observe in others, than of those you see in your- 
self; by this means you will preserve your humility, and excite 
and increase in your soul a desire of perfection. Whereas, if 
you look only on what you have yourself, and what others want, 
you will have a better opinion of yourself than of them, and will 
grow tepid and idle in the study of virtue. The reason is plain, 
because you will imagine, on comparing yourself with others, that 
you are something, and so you will come by degrees to be pleased 
with the state you find yourself in, and will not care for going any 
further. 

13. If, after any good actions, you discover any inclination to 
think ^ell of yourself, and to take pride in what you have done, 
your business then will be to watch more carefully over yourself 
for fear you should spoil and lose all the merit of it, by pride and 
vain-glory, the very bane of all that is good. You ought to be so 
far from attributing any good to your own merits, that you are, 
on the contrary, to thank God for all, and suppress your pride 
with those words of St. Paul : " What have you that you have 
not received ? And if you have received what you have, why do 
you grow proud as if you had not received it?" 1 Cor. iv. 7. 
You should endeavor to conceal all those good works you do, 
which are not of duty, but for your further advance in perfection, 
unless the state you are in requires they should be more public : 
you should not as much as let your left hand know what your 
right hand does, because we are more apt to be proud of the good 
works we do openly than of others. As soon as you perceive 
your heart but beginning to swell, you are immediately to make 
use of the remedy, that is, to call to mind your sins, but particu- 



288 THE sinner's guide. 

larly one or more of the most heinous of them ; and thus, Hke the 
physicians, you will expel one poison by another : follow the ex- 
ample of the peacock, look on that which is most deformed in you, 
and you will soon remove the very occasions of your vanity. The 
greater you are, the more humble you ought to be : for it is no 
great matter to be humble, if you are a mean person ; but if you 
are a person of honor and quality, and yet are thus disposed, you 
will acquire a very excellent and great virtue, because humility in 
the midst of honor is an honor to honor itself, and one dignity 
added to another; but if you have no humility, your honor and 
dignity will fall to the ground. 

14. If you desire to acquire the virtue of humility, follow the 
part of humiliation, for you will never be humble if you cannot 
endure to be humbled: and though there are several persons who 
pretend to be humble, when in reality they are far from being so, 
it is certainly true, " that the way to humility (as St. Bernard 
says) is humiliation ; as patience is the way to peace, and study 
to learning ;" St. Bern, ad Fratres De Monte Dei. Obey God, 
therefore, with all humility, and according to St. Peter's advice, 
" submit to every creature for the love of God ;" 1 Pet, ii. 13. 

15. St. Bernard would have us alway keep three sorts of fears 
in our hearts ; one when we are in the state of grace, another 
when we are out of it, and the third when we recover grace again. 
" Be afraid (says he) when you are in grace, lest you should do 
something unworthy of it : be afraid when you have lost grace, 
because without it you are deprived of the guard that watched 
over you to secure you : be afraid, too, if, after having lost it, you 
should ever recover it again, that you may not be so unhappy as 
to lose it a second time ;" St. Bern. Serm. 4. in Cantic. Do but 
keep yourself continually in these apprehensions, and you will 
never presume on your own strength and virtue, being always thus 
full of the fear of God. 

16. Suffer all your persecutions with patience, for it is the 
bearing of injuries and affronts in this manner, that shows us 
whether a man be truly humble or not. Never despise those who 
are poor and in distress ; our neighbor's misery should rather 
excite us to compassion than to a contempt of them. Be not too 
curious and expensive in your dress, for it is impossible a man's 
heart should be always humble when he is perpetually solicitous 
about costly apparel, nay, he that is so cannot but make it too 
much his business and study to please men; for a man would 
never take such pains to dress himself, if he thought no one would 
take any notice of him. But whilst you endeavor to avoid this 
extreme, have a care at the same time of running into the oppo- 
site, of going meaner than your state and condition requires, 
otherwise you will meet with vain-glory whilst you are running 
from it, as several persons do, who then seek most for commen- 



THE sinner's guide. 289 

dations when they pretend most to despise it; thus cunningly- 
studying to be admired, under the pretence of running from it. 
You ought not to disdain mean and base employments ; for a man 
that is truly humble will be so far from refusing such, as thinking 
them beneath him, that he will rather seek after them with all the 
cheerfulness imaginable, because he is base and vile in his own eyes. 



CHAPTER III. 

Remedies against Covetousness, 

1. Covetousness is an inordinate desire of riches ; and, there- 
fore, not only he that steals from others, but he that passionately 
covets what is another man's, or is too solicitous in keeping his 
own, is properly accounted covetous. The apostle condemned 
this vice, when he said, " They who desire to be rich fall into 
temptation, and into the snares of the devil, and into a great 
many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which sink men down into 
destruction and perdition ; for covetousness is the root of all evil ;" 
1 Tim. vi. 9, 10. He could not have exaggerated the malignity 
of this vice in more proper terms : for this gives us to understand, 
that he who is subject to this vice is a slave to all others. 

2. Whenever, therefore, you are attacked by this vice, you 
may arm yourself against it with the following considerations: 
Consider, in the first place, O covetous man, that your Lord and 
your God, when he came down from heaven on earth, did not 
desire to possess such riches as those you seek after ; on the con- 
trary, he had such an extraordinary love for poverty, that he chose 
to take flesh of a poor and humble virgin, not of a rich and noble 
queen. After he was born, he would not live in great palaces, 
nor lie in a chamber well furnished, nor in a soft bed, but in a 
base and poor manger, and on a little straw ; Luke ii. 7. Be- 
sides this, he had a particular love for poverty during his whole 
life, and despised riches, since he chose poor fishermen for his 
ambassadors and apostles, and not princes or persons of great 
quahty. What greater abuse can there be, than for a base worm 
to desire to be rich, when the sovereign Lord of all creatures 
became so poor for his sake ? 

8. Consider, again, the vileness of your own heart, since you 
are willing for a little interest to throw away your soul, which 
was created to the Hkeness of God, and redeemed by his blood, 
in comparison of which all the world is nothing. God would not 
have given his hfe for the whole world, and yet he laid it down 
for man's soul; this soul, therefore, must be of much greater 
value than the whole world. It is not silver, nor gold, nor pre- 
cious stones, that are the true riches, but virtue, the inseparable 
37 2 A 



290 THE sinner's guide. 

companion of a good conscience. Lay aside the false opinion 
and judgment of men, and you will see that your silver and gold 
is nothing but a little earth, which receives all its worth from the 
erroneous opinions of men. Will you, who are a Christian, and are 
called to the enjoyment of greater goods, set such an esteem upon 
that which all the heathen philosophers contemned and slighted, 
as to make yourself its slave? for, as St. Jerome says, "He that 
looks after his riches like a slave is a slave to them ; but he that 
shakes off this yoke, possesses them as lord and master ;" Hierom. 
in c. 6. Matt. 

4. Consider, also, that our Saviour says, no one can serve two 
masters, God and mammon (Matt. vi. 24), and that it is impos- 
sible for a man to contemplate God whilst he is running open- 
mouthed after worldly goods ; he that loves temporal delights and 
comforts must not expect to possess the spiritual ; nor is there any 
possibility of joining false and true things together, high and low, 
eternal and temporal, spiritual and carnal, so as to enjoy them 
both at once. Consider, that the more success you meet with in 
your worldly concerns, the more miserable you are like to be, 
because of the occasions it gives you of trusting too much to this 
false happiness you enjoy. Oh I that you did but know what 
misery attends this poor success ! The very desire, which proceeds 
from the love of riches, is a much greater torment than the pos- 
session of them can be a delight and pleasure, because it entan- 
gles the soul in many temptations, it engages it in many cares, 
invites it w^ith its empty delights, excites it to sin, and disturbs 
its rest and quiet : besides all this, there is no getting of riches 
without pains and labor, there is no keeping of them without so- 
licitude and care, and there is no losing of them without much 
grief and vexation ; but, what is worst of all, they are scarce ever 
to be heaped up without offending God ; for it is a common say- 
ing, " That a rich man is either a wicked man, or else a wicked 
man's heir." 

5. Consider what a folly it is to be continually desiring those 
things which it is certain can never satisfy your wish, though 
they were all to be joined together ; on the contrary, they do 
but provoke and raise your desire the more ; as a dropsical man, 
the more he drinks, still the drier he is ; because, let your posses- 
sions be ever so large, you will be always coveting what you have 
not, and continually gaping after more. So that, whilst your heart 
is unhappily running after the things of this w^orld, it tires itself 
without being ever satisfied ; it drinks, and yet cannot quench its 
thirst, because it takes no notice of what it has, and thinks of 
nothing but how to get more : and what is still worse, that which 
it is already possessed of cannot give it so much ease and content- 
ment as that, which it cannot obtain, gives it disturbance and trouble ; 
and whilst you are filling your coffers with gold, you fill your 



THE sinner's guide. 291 

heart full of air and smoke. St. Augustine had a great deal of 
reason to be astonished at this kind of proceeding, and, therefore, 
he said, " How is it possible that men should be so insatiable in 
their desires, when even brute creatures observe a bound and 
measure in theirs ? For they never seek their prey but when they 
are hungry ; and as soon as ever they are satisfied, they give over. 
There is nothing but the covetousness of rich men that knows no 
limits; it is perpetually craving, and yet never satisfied." St 
Aug. Serm. 25. de Verbis Domini. 

6. Consider, again, where there are great riches, there are 
many to consume them, many to squander or steal them away. 
What can the richest man in the world get by all his riches, more 
than what is necessary for the support of life ? You may, if you 
\vill, put all your trust in God, and cast yourself wholly upon his 
providence, be free from this care, because he never forsakes 
those that rely on him ; for he that has subjected man to the ne- 
cessity of eating, will never let him die for want of meat. How 
can it be thought, that God should take no notice of man, when 
he feeds the birds of the air, and clothes the lilies of the field 
(Matt. vi. 26, 28), and this especially when so httle serves for the 
satisfying of nature ? Life is short, and death is continually ad- 
vancing apace ; what need is there, then, of providing so much for 
so short a journey ? Why will you load yourself with so much 
riches, when the less you have the more free you will be, and the 
better able to walk ? And when you shall come to your journey's 
end, you will find no worse entertainment for being poor, than 
those that shall come hither richer fraught ; you will be less trou- 
bled for what you leave, and will have the less to answer for. 
Whereas the rich, when they come to their journey's end, will be 
grieved to the heart to leave those heaps of gold they so entirely 
loved, and will be accountable for what they possessed, to the great 
danger of their souls. 

7. Consider further, O covetous man, for whom you heap up all 
those riches, since it is a plain case, that you are to go as naked 
out of the world as you came into it ; Job. i. 21. You were born 
poor in this life, and so you will be forced to leave it. This is 
what you are frequently to reflect on. For, as St. Jerome says, 
" It is an easy matter for him that thinks often of death, to de- 
spise the goods of this life ;" Ad Paulinum in Prologo Bibhae. 
At the very moment of your death, you must take your leave of all 
your temporal goods, and carry nothing away with you but the 
good or evil works you have done during your life ; then you will 
be deprived of all heavenly goods, if, w^hilst you lived, you took 
but Httle notice of them, and spent all your time and pains in pro- 
curing the temporal : for then all you have will be divided into 
three parts ; your body will be given to the worms, your soul to 
the devils, and your riches will fall into the hands of your heirs, 



292 THE sinner's guide. 

who will perhaps be either ungrateful, extravagant or wicked. It 
w^ould be better for you, according to the advice of our Saviour, to 
distribute your goods amongst the poor betimes, that you may 
have them carried by them before you, as great men have when 
they travel ; Luke xvi. 9. For what greater madness is there, 
than to leave your goods where you shall never go back to fetch 
them, and not to send them w^here you are to live for ever ? 

8. Consider, further, that the sovereign Governor of the world, 
like a discreet master of a family, disposes of his goods, and the 
charges under him, in such a manner as that some he constitutes 
to look after the rest, and others he appoints to be subject to those 
whom he sets over them; some he has ordered to distribute what 
is necessary, and others to receive the distributions. And since 
you are one of those who are to distribute to others, what re- 
mains over and above your own necessary expenses, can you ima- 
gine, that you are allowed to keep that for yourself which has 
been given you for several others ? For, as St. Easil says, " the 
bread you lock up, belongs to the poor ; the clothes you hide, are 
for those who have none to put on ; and the money you hoard up, 
is to be distributed amongst those that want it;" Hom. de Diversis. 
Therefore assure yourself, that you have robbed as many persons 
as you have neglected to assist with what you had to spare, when- 
ever it was in your power to do it. Consider, then, that the 
goods God has intrusted you with, are the remedies of human 
miseries, not the occasion of a bad life. Ee sure, then, when 
you are in the midst of your prosperity, that you do not forget 
the Author of it ; nor make the means you have of assisting your 
neighbor in his distress, the subject of your pride and vanity: 
do not, therefore, love the place of your banishment more than 
your own country : do not make a burden of the provisions and 
necessaries for your journey : do not prefer the light of the moon 
before the sun at noon-day ; nor change the succors of this life 
into the instruments of everlasting death. Be content with the 
condition God has placed you in, and think of what the apostle 
says. Having enough for to feed and clothe ourselves with, we are 
content therewith (1 Tim. vi. 8) ; for, as St. Chrysostom says, 
" A servant of God ought not to dress himself out of vanity, or to 
indulge and please his flesh, but only to supply necessity and want." 
First seek the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things 
shall be added to you. For God will never deny you such small 
things as those are, when he is willing to give you the greatest 
you are capable of receiving. 

9. Remember it is not poverty, but the love of it, that is a 
virtue. Those who are voluntarily poor, are like our Saviour 
himself, who, as rich as he was, made himself poor for our sakes. 
But those who are poor, and cannot help it, make a virtue of ne- 
cessity, when they bear their poverty with patience, and contemn 



THE sinner's guide. 293 

those riches which they have not. And as they who are poor 
conform themselves by their poverty to Jesus Christ, so they who 
are rich reform themselves by their alms for Jesus Christ. For 
we see, that not only the poor shepherds, but that wise and great 
men came to him, and made him presents of their riches and 
treasures. Do you, therefore, who have an estate large enough 
to do it, give alms to the poor, for it is God that receives what 
you give them, and look on it for certain, that what you bestow 
on them now, will be laid up for you in heaven, where you are 
to live for all eternity : but if you should hide your riches in this 
world, you must not expect to find any thing there, where you 
have not laid it up. With what justice, then, can we call those 
things good, which man cannot carry along with him, and which 
he unwillingly parts with ? But spiritual goods, on the contrary, 
are what we may truly call such, because they do not leave their 
master, even at his death, nor can they be taken from a man without 
his own consent. 

§ I. That no person ought to detain another Man's Goods. — 
10. A word or two of advice here, on the danger there is in de- 
taining other men's goods, w^ll not be amiss. To which purpose 
you are to understand, that it is not only a sin to take what be- 
longs to another, but even to detain it against the owner's will. 
And it is not enough to have a design of restoring it hereafter, if 
a man is able to do it now, because he is not only obliged to make 
restitution, but to make it immediately. It is true that if he can- 
not do it presently, or is so poor that he cannot do it at all, he is 
not in such a case obliged either to the one or to the other, because 
God does not oblige a man to any thing that is impossible. 

11. There is no need of any more words to prove what I have 
said, than those of St. Gregory, in his letter to a gentleman of 
his acquaintance. " Remember, sir (says he), that the riches 
gotten by unlawful ways are to remain here, and the sins you have 
been guilty of in acquiring them are to go along with you. 
What greater folly can you commit than to leave the gain here, and 
to carry the loss vdth you where you are going ? to let another 
take the pleasure, whilst you undergo the torment, and to oblige 
yourself to suffer in the next world for that which others are to 
have the benefit of in this ? 

12. " Besides, can there be a greater madness than to look less 
to yourself than to your estate ? to lose your soul rather than part 
with your money, and to expose your body to the danger of being 
run through, rather than part wdth your coat ? This is some- 
thing like Judas, who, for a little money, sold justice, grace and 
his own soul. If, in fine, it is true, as without doubt it is, that 
you must make restitution at the hour of death, if you design to 
save your soul, how can you show yourself a greater fool than to 
continue here so long in sin, to sleep in sin, to awake in sin, to 

2A2 



294 THE sinner's guide. 

confess in sin, to communicate in sin, and to lose what a man in sin 
loses, which is worth much more than all the riches of the world, 
whilst, at the same time, you are so strictly obliged to pay off what- 
ever you owe? We cannot look on him as a man of sound judg- 
ment or reason that will run such hazards as these." 

13. Endeavor, therefore, to pay what you owe to the utmost 
farthing, and let not any one suffer for want of your doing so ; 
Deut. xxiv. Tob. iv. Let not the laborer's toil and sweat go un- 
rewarded ; let him not run up and down and lose his time in 
seeking after its wages, and to take more pains in soliciting for 
them, when due, than he did in earning of them, as bad paymas- 
ters often do. If you be made an executor, do not defraud the 
souls departed of the succor and help that is due to them, lest 
they should suffer their torments longer on account of your neglect ; 
for all will fall heavy at last on your own soul. If you are indebted 
to your servants, endeavor to make all clear and even with them, 
that so you may disengage yourself; or, at least, agree with them 
on such terms whilst you live, that there may be no disputes nor 
differences after your death. Whatsoever you can perform of your 
own will, leave not to executors ; for how can you imagine, if you 
are so careless in your own concerns, that other persons will be 
more dihgent in concerns which were none of their own ? 

14. Endeavor to be indebted to no man, for by that means 
you will sleep quietly, enjoy peace of conscience, an easy life and 
a calm death. The means to obtain all this is, to put a stop to your 
irregular desires and appetites, and not to do every thing you have 
a mind to do ; to see that your expenses do not exceed your estate, 
but to moderate them according to your ability, and not according 
to your own desires, that so you may always keep out of debt. 
For they are our unruly appetites which make us run into debt ; 
moderation is worth more than a great estate and large revenues. 
Look on these as the chief and only true riches, which the apostle 
reckons as such, when he says, " Piety with content," in w^hat 
condition God puts us in, " is great gain ;" 1 Tim. vi. 6. Men 
would always live in peace, did not they desire to be greater and 
happier in this world than God would have them ; but when they 
aspire to go beyond this bound, they must of necessity lose a great 
deal of their peace and quiet, for we must not expect that should 
prove successful which is not according to the Almighty's will. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Remedies against Impurity. 

1. Impurity is an inordinate desire of unlawful pleasures. It 
is one of the most common, the most furious and most dangerous 



THE sinner's guide. 295 

vices, in its attacks ; which ga-ve St. Augustine reason to say, 
" That of all the encounters a Christian meets with, those in which 
chastity is engaged are the most difficult, for there the engagements 
are frequent, and the victories rare ;" S. Aug. de honestate Mu- 
lierum. 

2. As often, therefore, as you perceive yourself set upon by 
this filthy vice, you must oppose it with the following considera- 
tions ; Consider, first, that this vice not only defiles the soul, which 
the Son of God has purified by his blood, but that it also stains 
the body, in which Christ's most sacred body resides, as in a 
holy shrine. Now, if it be so great a crime to defile any mate- 
rial temple dedicated to God, what must it be to profane this, in 
which God himself dwells? For this reason the apostle says, 
" Fly from the sin of fornication, my brethren, because whatso- 
ever sin a man shall commit, it is out of the body ; but he who 
falls into fornication, sins against his own body" (1 Cor. vi. 18), 
by profaning and defiling it with the sin of the flesh. Consider, 
again, that there is no committing of this sin, without an injury 
and scandal to as many others as are accomplices with you in 
your crime. Nothing lies so heavy on the conscience at the hour 
of death as this sin does. For if God, in the old law, required 
life for life, and tooth for tooth, what returns can a man make God 
for the destroying so many souls ? And what satisfaction can be 
given for that, which the Almighty purchased at the price of his 
blood? Exod. xxi. 24. 

3. Consider that this deceitful vice, though it begins in plea- 
sure, produces nothing but bitterness and sorrow at the end. It is 
easy to be drawn into it, but nothing harder than to get free from 
it again. For this reason the wise man said, " That a whore is a 
deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit;" Prov. xiii. 
So that as easy as it is to fall into it, it is no such easy matter to 
get out again. For no vice surprises men more easily, because it 
appears so delightful and charming at the beginning, but after they 
are once entangled in it, have knit a sort of friendship, and laid 
aside all modesty, what means can serve to reclaim them from it ? 
For this reason it is justly compared to a fisherman's w^heel, which 
has the entrance wide, but the way out so narrow, that it is almost 
impossible for the fish, w^hen once they are in, to get out again. 
By this you may understand what a multitude of sins are the con- 
sequence of this one ; for it is plain, that during the whole time a 
man has been engaged in it, he cannot but have offended God an 
infinite number of times, by thoughts, actions and desires. 

4. Consider how many other evils this bewitching plague brings 
along with it. For, in the first place, it robs a man of his repu- 
tation, which is the dearest of all things we can possess in this 
world ; for no vice w^hatever is so disreputable and infamous as 
this is. Nor is this all, for it impairs strength, decays beauty, 



296 THE sinner's guide. 

destroys the good temper of the body, is prejudicial to health, 
and causes many foul and loathsome distempers ; it blasts the 
gaiety, steals the freshness of youth before its time, and brings on 
an infamous old age too fast on us ; it dulls the wit, clogs the un- 
derstanding, and makes it in a manner nearly brutal ; it' takes a 
man off from all honorable employs and virtuous exercises, and 
buries him in the mud and filth of this base pleasure, so that he 
can neither think nor talk, nor treat of any thing, but what is 
base and filthy ; it makes youth foolish and infamous, and old age 
unhappy and abominable. Nor is it content with all this disorder, 
which it causes in a man's own person — it puts all his affairs and 
concerns into no less confusion. For though a man be ever so 
rich or wealthy, this one sin of impurity will run all out in a very 
short time. The belly must come in for its share, and help to 
destroy and devour what it can. For those men that are given to 
the sins of the flesh, are for the most part gluttons and drunkards, 
and so squander away what they have in feasting and fine clothes. 
Besides, women think they have never enough of jewels, costly 
apparel, and other expensive toys, which they love much better 
than they do those very gallants that give them. We have an ex- 
ample of this in the prodigal son, w^ho spent all his patrimony after 
this manner ; Luke xv. 

5. Consider, further, that the more you indulge yourself in car- 
nal pleasures, the less satisfaction you will find in them. For this 
delight is so far from satiating, that it still creates an appetite ; 
because the love of man for woman, or woman for man, never 
dies, but, though it happen to be a little smothered in embers, will 
break out into flames again. Consider how short and fleeting 
this pleasure is ; whereas the punishment due to it will last for all 
eternity. So that it is a most unequal exchange to give the pa- 
tience of a good conscience in this life, and eternal glory in the 
next, besides purchasing everlasting torments, for a filthy plea- 
sure of a moment's lasting. This it was made St. Gregory say, 
" The delight lasts but for a moment, but the torments last for 
ever." 

6. Consider the price and value of virginal purity, which is lost 
by this vice, because they who are virgins begin, even in this 
life, to live like angels, and the brightness of their souls makes 
them resemble the heavenly spirits ; because, " to live in the flesh 
without doing the works of the flesh, is more an angelical than a 
human virtue;" S. Bern, m Nat. Yirg. St. Jerome says, "It is 
virginity which resembles the estate of immortal glory in this 
place, and during this time of mortality ; it is it alone which fol- 
lows the custom of the heavenly Jerusalem, w^here is no such 
thing as betrothing or marrying, and by this means gives men 
a proof, whilst they are upon earth, of the conversation they are 
to have in heaven ;" S. Hier. to 9. & 14. de Virginitatis Laude. 



THE sinner's guide. 297 

For this reason, there is a particular reward in heaven for virgins ; 
of whom St. John says, in his Apocalypse, " These are they who 
have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins, and fol- 
low the Lamb whithersoever he goes ;" Apoc. xiv. 14. For since 
they have had the advantage in this world over the rest of man- 
kind, of imitating Christ in his virginal purity, they shall, there- 
fore, have a freer access to him in the next, and the purity of their 
bodies shall give them a particular happiness and joy. 

7. Nor is it the only effect of this virtue, to make those who 
possess it like Christ himself, but it makes them living temples of 
the Holy Ghost ; for as this divine lover of purity abhors nothing 
so much as the sins of the flesh, so he no where so willingly makes 
his abode as in pure and chaste souls. Wherefore the Son of God, 
w^ho was conceived by the Holy Ghost, had such an esteem and 
love for virginity, as to work the miracle of being born of a virgin 
mother. Do you, who have already lost your virginity, after once 
suffering shipwreck, dread dangers you have run through ? And 
since you would not preserve that gift of nature entire, endeavor 
now, at least, to repair the loss, and turning to God after sin, em- 
ploy yourself so much the more in good works, by how much you 
are sensible your evil actions have deserved punishment. "For 
(as St. Gregory says) it often happens, that a soul which, if it had 
remained in a state of innocence, would have been more tepid and 
careless, becomes after sin more diligent and fervent ;'' S. Greg, 
in Pastoral. Par. 1. And since God, notwithstanding the many 
sins you have conomitted, has yet preserved you, commit not any 
thing again, w'hich may oblige him to punish you, both for what 
is past and for the present, lest your last crime should be much 
worse than your former. 

8. With these and the like considerations, a man is to prepare 
and arm himself against this vice ; and these are the first remedies 
we prescribe against it. 

§ I. Of other more particular Remedies against Impurity. — 
9. Besides these general remedies against this vice, there are 
several others, more particular and more sovereign, of which it is 
requisite we should speak. The first is, to resist the very first 
motions of it ; it is an advice we have frequently given in other 
places ; for if we do not beat this enemy off as soon as ever he 
sets on us, he immediately grows stronger and more vigorous ; 
because, according to St. Gregory, " when once the irregular 
desire of pleasure gets the better of the heart, it will not give it 
time to think of any thing else, but how to enjoy its delights ;" 
L. 7. Moral, c. 12. We must, for this reason, resist the beginning, 
by not giving admittance to any carnal thoughts ; for as fire is 
nourished and kept in by wood, so our thoughts increase and in- 
flame our desires, which, if they are good, kindle the fire of charity, 
and if bad, that of impurity. 
38 



298 



THE SINNER S GUIDE. 



10. Besides all this, you must keep a strict guard upon all your 
senses ; but, above all, have a care of looking on any thing that 
has the least danger in it : for a man often looks upon a thing 
without any ill design, yet the soul is wounded by a glance of the 
eye. And because the casting of a look inconsiderately upon 
women may either quite bend, or at least weaken his constancy 
that casts it, therefore the author of Ecclesiasticus gives us this 
advice : " Cast not your eyes through the corners of the city, nor 
through the streets or public places ; turn away your eyes from a 
woman that is well dressed, and behold not her beauty." Holy 
Job's example upon this occasion should suffice, who, notwith- 
standing his extraordinary sanctity, never neglected, as he assures 
us himself, to set a; watch over his eye, not relying upon himself, 
or his long practice of virtue; Job xxxi. 1. But if this example 
alone will not do, let us set that of David before us, and we shall 
find that he, though a very holy man, and after God's own heart, 
by looking curiously upon a woman, fell into three most grievous 
sins, viz. murder, scandal and adultery ; 2 Kings xi. 

11. Nor are you to be less careful in keeping your ears from 
hearing of any thing that is obscene and unchaste ; or if at any 
time you should hear such kind of discourse, let your looks show 
that you are not pleased with it ; for if a man once takes delight 
in hearing a thing, he will be easily wrought upon to act it. You 
must also keep your tongue from speaking filthy words, because, 
as St. Paul says, Evil communications corrupt good manners ; 1 
Cor. XV. 13. A man's discourse discovers his inclinations and 
affections, because it is the touchstone of the heart, and it is what 
this is full of, that the tongue generally speaks out. 

12. Endeavor to have your heart always entertained with good 
thoughts, and your body always employed in some good exercise. 
" For," as St. Bernard says, " the devils always put bad thoughts 
into an idle soul, to keep it in employ, that so it may not cease 
to think ill, though it ceases to do ill ;" S. Bern, de Doct. Demo. 
c. 40. 

13. It will be very proper in all temptations, but especially in 
this, to represent to yourself your guardian angel and the devil 
your accuser, for both of them really take notice of all you do, 
and give an account thereof to the same all-seeing Judge. If 
this be true, as there is no doubt to be made of it, how can you 
dare to commit so base and so detestable a crime, which you would 
blush to do before the meanest man in the world, in the sight of 
your guardian, of your accuser, and of your judge ? Reflect, also, 
how terrible the divine judgment is, and how dreadful the flames 
of everlasting torments. For as one nail drives out another, so 
the apprehension we have of one punishment is overcome by the 
fear of a greater ; and so the fire of lust is often extinguished by 
reflecting upon that of hell. Besides all this, avoid, as much as 



THE sinner's guide. 299 

possibly you can, the discoursing alone with any woman, whose 
age may give the least suspicion ; for, according to St. Chrysos- 
tom, " our adversary sets upon men and women with more bold- 
ness and vigor, when he sees them alone ; and the tempter will 
come with much more assurance, when there is no fear of any 
one's correcting them for their disorders ;" S. Chrysost. Serm. 
contra Concubinarios, tom. 5. It is for this reason very advisable, 
that you would never converse wath a woman without some com- 
panion ; for being alone is a great excitement and temptation to do 
any thing that is wicked. Do not trust your own virtue, no, not 
after the practice of many years ; for you know how the old 
judges were inflamed with the love of Susanna, after having seen 
her several times alone in her garden ; Dan. xiii. Avoid the com- 
pany of all women whatever, that may give any suspicion ; be- 
cause the very sight of them is prejudicial to the heart, their 
words charm it, their conversation inflames it, their touch pro- 
vokes it ; in fine, there is nothing about them that is not a snare 
to those that keep them company. For this reason St. Gregory 
says, " Those who have consecrated their bodies to chastity should 
not venture to live in the same house with women ; for a man ought 
not to think that the fire of his heart is quite put out, as long as he 
has any heat in his body ;" L. i. Dialog, c. 7. 

14. Have a care how you receive any presents, visits or letters 
from women ; for all these are so many chains to entangle the 
poor heart, and so many blasts to blow up the fire of evil desires, 
w^hen all the flame is quite out. If you have any aff*ection for any 
holy and chaste woman, love her in your soul, without troubling 
3''0urself about visiting or conversing familiarly with her. Now, 
because the whole management of this business consists particu- 
larly in avoiding these occasions, I will give you two examples, 
very pertinent to the matter in hand, related by St. Gregory in 
his Dialogues : " There was a certain priest, in the province of 
Mysia, who governed a church committed to his care with a great 
deal of piety, and in the fear of God. There was in the same 
place a very virtuous woman, who looked to the church-furniture 
and ornaments. The good priest loved this woman as entirely as 
if she had been his sister, but at the same time was as much afraid 
of her as if she had been his enemy ; so that he never permitted 
her to come near him, on any account whatever, and removed all 
occasion of familiarity or conversation with her; as it is usual 
for holy men to separate themselves even from such things as are 
lawful, that they may be at a greater distance from such as are 
unlaw^ful ; and for this reason he would never let her serve him 
in any of his necessities. The holy man being very old, for he 
had been a priest above forty years, was taken so violently ill, 
that he was just at death's door ; as he lay in tliis condition, this 
virtuous woman came to his bed-side, and put her ear to his nos- 



300 THE sinner's guide. 

trils, to know whether he was dead. The dying man, perceiving 
itj was offended, and cried out as loud as he possibly could, say- 
ing, ' Get you hence, woman, get you hence ; for the embers are 
not quite extinguished yet — therefore, take away the straw.' The 
woman immediately went away, and he, recovering as it were 
fresh strength, began to say, with a great deal of joy and cheer- 
fulness, * You are' come, my lords, at a happy time, you are come 
at a good hour. How could you vouchsafe to come to so mean a 
servant as I am ? I come, I come. I give you a thousand and a 
thousand thanks.' As he repeated the same words over and over 
again, those that were standing by asked him whom he spoke to : 
he wondered at their question, and made them this answer : ' What, 
do not you see the glorious apostles St. Peter and St. Paul ?' And 
immediately turning himself towards them, he began again to cry 
out, ' I come, I come.' The words were no sooner out of his mouth, 
but he gave up his soul to God." Lib. 4. Dialog, c. 7. St. Gregory 
gives us this example of so holy a man, together with his happy 
death, in the Fourth Book of his Dialogues ; for he that was so 
much afraid of offending God while he lived, could not but make a 
very glorious end. 

15. He gives another, in the Third Book of the same Dialogues, 
of a holy bishop, though not so discreet and cautious, which I will 
here relate for a warning to those who are not so much upon the^ 
guard as they should be. The saint assures us there were almost 
as many witnesses of it as there were people in the town where it 
happened. 

16. " There was in a certain city of Italy a bishop, whose name 
was Andrew, who, having always lived a very virtuous and holy 
life, permitted a pious and devout woman to live in the same 
house with him, as being well assured of her virtue and chastity. 
The devil, laying hold of this opportunity, found a way to get into 
his heart, and began first to imprint the form of this woman in 
his mind, and to excite him to impure and wanton thoughts. It 
happened at the same time, that a certain Jew, as he was travel- 
ling from Campania to Rome, was benighted not far from this 
bishop's city, and not finding any other place to lodge in, was 
obliged to take up in a ruinous temple of idols, where he laid 
himself down to sleep. But fearing some ill neighborhood, though 
he had no faith in the cross, yet having observed that the Chris- 
tians used to sign themselves with it whenever they were in any 
danger, he did so too. Not being able to sleep for fear, about 
midnight he saw a great troop of devils come into the temple, and 
one above the rest, setting himself in a chair in the middle of the 
temple, began to ask those evil spirits what mischief each of them 
had done in the world. Every one of them, in his turn, having 
told how he had behaved himself, out stepped one of them at last 
and told him, that he had solicited bishop Andrew to sin, by rep- 



THE sinner's guide. 301 

resenting to him the form of a devout woman he had with him in 
his house. As the malicious devil that presided was listening 
very attentively to this relation, looking upon the gains the 
greater the more pious the person w^as, the evil one that gave him 
this account went on and told him, that the day before, in the eve- 
ning, he tempted him so violently, that, coming to the holy woman 
with a smiling countenance, he gave her a little stroke on the 
shoulders. Hereupon the old enemy of mankind began to encou- 
rage this tempter to go through what he had begun, that he might 
receive a particular reward for so noble an action. The Jew stood 
still during this ceremony, and saw all that passed, trembling with 
fear at so dreadful a spectacle. At last the evil spirit, who w^as 
chief of the company, sent some to see who it was had been so 
bold as to sleep there. When they had viewed him very narrowly, 
they cried out, 'Alas! alas! it is an empty vessel, but w^ell 
sealed ;' at which the whole gang of evil spirits vanished imme- 
diately. When they were gone, up rose the Jew, and made what 
haste he could into the city, and there finding the bishop in the 
church he took him aside, and asked him if he was not troubled 
with some particular temptation. The bishop denying it, for shame, 
the Jew told him, that at such a time, naming the day, he cast a 
w^anton eye upon a servant of God. The bishop continuing still 
to deny the whole matter, the Jew said to him, ' Why do you 
deny what I ask you, when but yesterday, in the evening, you 
\vent so far as to give her a little blow with your hand over the 
shoulders?' The bishop, astonished at what the Jew had told 
him, and perceiving himself caught in this fault, freely confessed 
what he had denied before ; and then the Jew told him how he 
came to know it. As soon as the bishop had heard all, he pros- 
trated himself upon the earth, and prayed very devoutly to Almighty 
God, and immediately after dismissed not only the holy woman, 
but all the maid-servants he had. He built a chapel in the honor 
of St. Andrew, in the very same temple of Apollo in which the 
Jew had heard this passage, and was never troubled again \\dth 
any such temptation. Besides this, he converted the Jew, by 
whose vision and admonition he had been cured himself, to the 
true knowledge of God, instructed him in the mysteries of our 
faith, baptized and received him into the church. Thus the Jew 
happened to find his own salvation, whilst he was procuring 
another man's, and our Lord made use of the same means to bring 
one to good life, and to preserve another therein." L. 3. Dial. c. 
7. I could instance here a great many other examples to this 
purpose, botli of past times and of our ow^n ; but these two shall 
serve at present. 

2B 



302 THE sinner's guide. 

CHAPTER V. 
Remedies against Envy. 

1. Envy is a sorrow at other men's goods, and a repining at 
their happiness, that is, at great persons, because the envious 
man sees he cannot be equal to them ; at his inferiors, because 
they endeavor to equal him ; and at his equals, because they vie 
with him. Thus Saul envied David, and the Pharisees Christ, to 
that degree as to procure his death ; 1 Kings xix. For this pas- 
sion is so cruel as not to spare even such persons as these. This 
sin is mortal in its kind, because it is as directly opposite to 
charity as hatred is; though it often proves not to be mortal, 
which, as in all other sins, so in this of envy happens, when the 
envy is not consummate. For as there is a downright hatred, 
and a sort of an aversion, which cannot be called a perfect hatred, 
though it is not far from it, there is also a perfect and an imper- 
fect envy ; but the latter leads to the former. 

2. This is one of the most powerful and most prejudicial sins 
that is, and which of all others has the greatest conmiand and 
rule in the world, but particularly in courts and great men's 
houses. Nay, there is no society, community or monastery, that 
can escape it. What man is there, then, that can defend himself 
against this monster ? Who is there so happy as neither to envy 
others, nor to be envied himself? For when a man considers 
what envy there has been in former times ; — I do not speak of that 
which was between the two brothers, Romulus and Remus, the 
first founders of Rome, but of that which was between the two 
brothers who first peopled the world, and went so far as to make 
one of them kill the other (Gen. iv.) ; of that which Joseph's 
brothers bore him, when they sold him for a slave (Gen. xxxvii) ; 
of that which w^as between our Saviour's disciples themselves, 
before the Holy Ghost's coming down upon them (Luke xxii) ; 
and above all, of that which Aaron and Mary, the chosen of God, 
bore their brother Moses ; Numb. xii. ; — when a man reflects upon 
all this, what must he think of other men in the world, who are 
neither so holy as these persons were, nor so nearly related to one 
another? This is certainly one of the vices that most predomi- 
nates in the world, and does the most mischief without making 
any noise. For its proper effect is to persecute good men, and 
such as are esteemed for their virtue and other commendable qual- 
ities. This is its chief aim : for this reason Solomon says, " That 
men's pains and labors lie all open to the envy of their neighbor ;" 
Eccles. iv. 4. 

3. You ought, therefore, upon this consideration, to be very 
cautious, and to arm yourself well against this enemy, by con- 
tinual prayer to God to assist you against him, and by being careful 



THE sinner's guide. 803 

of rejecting it upon all occasions. And if it should continue 
still to solicit and disturb you, be you still constant and vigorous 
in beating it off; for it matters not, though the mahcious flesh 
feel the sHght stroke of this weak motion, so long as the will does 
not consent to it. So that if at any time you should see your 
neighbor or friend in a happier and more thriving condition than 
yourself, thank God for it, and persuade yourself either you have 
not deserved to fare so well as he does, or, at least, that it is not 
requisite you should ; and never forget, that to envy another man's 
happiness is no relief to your poverty, but rather an increase and 
addition to your misery. 

4. But if you would know what weapons you must make use 
•of against this vice, let them be the following considerations : — 
Consider, therefore, in the first place, that envious persons re- 
semble the devils, who are extremely troubled at the good works 
we do, and at the eternal happiness we are capable of; and this, 
not because men losing this happiness can give them any hopes 
of obtaining it, for they are out of all hopes of ever recovering 
it again, but because men that are formed out of the dust of the 
earth enjoy what they have for ever lost. It was this that made 
St. Augustine say, in his book of Christian Doctrine, " God pre- 
serve not only the hearts of Christians, but of all mankind, from 
ever falling into this vice ; beoause it is diabolical, particularly 
imposed upon the devil, and for which he will suffer for all eter- 
nity without any reprieve or respite." For the devil is not pun- 
ished for committing adultery, or for any robbery or theft he has 
been guilty of, but for having envied man, that stood when he 
was fallen. So envious men, like the devils, envy other persons 
not so much because they pretend to be as happy as those others 
are, as because they would have those others as miserable as 
themselves. Consider, therefore, O envious man, that you 
would not be the better for those goods for which you envy 
another, though he whom you envy had them not ; so that, if his 
having what he has be no prejudice to you, you have no reason 
to be troubled at it. If you envy another man's virtue, consider 
you are in this point your own enemy, because there is no good 
work your neighbor does which you have not a share in, if you 
are in but the state of grace ; and the more he merits, the more 
you gain for yourself. You have so Httle reason, therefore, to 
envy his virtue, that you ought to rejoice both of his profit and 
your own, since you have a share in his good. Consider, there- 
fore, what a misfortune it is, that your neighbor's growing 
better should make you grow worse; whereas those very goods 
which you cannot have would be yours through charity, if you 
would but love them in your neighbor ; and by this means you 
would enjoy the benefit of other men's labors, without taking any 
pains yourself. 



304 THE sinner's guide. 

5. Consider that envy burns up the heart, parches the flesh, 
wearies the understanding, robs a man of his peace of conscience, 
banishes all kinds of joy and pleasure froni the soul, and makes 
him melancholy and uneasy all his life-time. It is like a worm 
that generates in wood, which gnaws away and consumes the 
very wood that gave it being. After the same manner, the first 
thing that envy preys on is the heart itself, from whence it re- 
ceives its rise and origin. When once it has corrupted the heart, 
it soon disfigures and changes the color of the face ; and you 
may guess by the outward paleness at the disturbance and trouble 
there is within. For there is no judge in the world so severe as 
this vice is against itself, for it is perpetually punishing and tor- 
menting its own author. And, therefore, several learned men very 
properly call it just, not because it is really so, being a heinous 
sin, but because it is itself a punishment to him that has it, and so 
far does justice on him. 

6. Consider also how opposite it is to charity, which is God, 
and how much against the common good, which every one should 
promote, as far as he can ; for to envy another man^s happiness, 
and to hate those persons whom God had created and redeemed, 
and on whom he is continually bestowing so many favors, what 
is this but to dislike and undo what God has done in will at least, 
and in desire, if not in effect and actions ? But if you would have 
a more efficacious remedy against this poison, love humility and 
abhor sin, which is the mother of this plague. Because a proud 
man, not being able to endure any one above, or even equal to 
him, is easily wrought on to envy those persons who have any 
kind of advantage over him, persuading himself, that the higher 
another man rises, he must of course fall the lower. The apostle 
was very sensible of this, when he said, " Let us not be desirous 
of vain-glory, challenging one another, envying one another" 
(Galat. V. 26) ; designing by these words to disarm the envy, and 
therefore begins with ambition, which is the very root from 
whence it springs. For the same reason you should wean your 
affections from the love of worldly riches, and fix it upon none 
but the spiritual, and on the inheritance you are to have in heav- 
en ; because this treasure is of such a nature that it will never 
grow less, because there are many to enjoy it ; for, on the con- 
trary, the more there are to possess it, the more it increases; 
whereas worldly riches, the more they are distributed, the sooner 
they are diminished. Therefore it is that envy torments the soul 
of him that covets this kind of wealth, because another person, 
getting what he covets, either deprives him entirely of it, or at 
least diminishes what he would have had. For a man can scarce 
forbear being troubled if another carries away that which he had 
set his heart on. 

7. Nay, it is not enough for you to be troubled at your neigh- 



THE sinner's guide. 305 

bor's prosperity, you must further endeavor to do him all the 
good you can, and pray to God that he would be pleased to assist 
liim in what you cannot. Hate no man, love your friends in God, 
and your enemies for the sake of God, w^ho has such a tender and 
passionate love for you, though you were first his enemy, as to lay 
down his life to deliver you from the power of your enemies. And 
though your neighbor be a wdcked man, yet you are not to hate 
him for his being so, but in such a case you must act the part of a 
physician who loves his patient, though he hates his distemper ; 
and this is nothing else but to love what God has done, and hate 
that which has been done by man. Never say within yourself. 
What have I to do with this man ? or w^hat am I obliged to that 
man for ? I do not know" him ; he is no relation of mine ; he never 
did me any good turn, but I am sure he has done me many a bad 
one. All you have to do is, to reflect on those infinite favors you 
have received from God, without ever having deserved them. 
All the return he requires is that you would be liberal and kind, 
not to him, for he has no need of any of your riches, but to your 
neighbor, whom he has recommended to you. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Remedies against Gluttony. 

1. Gluttony is an inordinate love of eating and drinking. 
Our Saviour gave us a charge against this, when he said, " Have 
a care of yourselves, for fear your hearts should be overcharged 
with excess of eating and drinking, and w4th the care of your 
life ;" Luke xxi. 34. 

2. Whenever, therefore, you find yourself tempted by this vice, 
make use of the following considerations, in order to overcome 
the temptation. Consider, in the first place, that death came into 
the world by the sin of gluttony (Gen. iii.), and, therefore, this is 
to be the first battle you are to win. For the less you oppose 
this vice, the more powerful the rest will grow, and you at the 
same time the less able to encounter them. If, therefore, you 
would come off with victory, subdue gluttony first, for, unless you 
overcome this vice, you will labor against the others to no purpose. 
Do but destroy the enemies that are within, and you wall find it 
no hard matter to overcome those that are wdthout. It avails 
little to fight against enemies abroad, w^hilst there are others more 
dangerous at home. For this reason the devil tempted our Saviour 
first with gluttony, to make himself master of the gate which all 
other vices enter in at. 

3. Cast your eyes on the extraordinary abstinence of our Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ, who dealt very severely with his most sacred 

39 2B2 



306 THE sinner's guide. 

flesh, not only during his fast in the desert, but at several other 
times, suffering hunger for our example, as well as for our benefit ; 
Matt. iv. Now if he who maintains the angels by his presence, 
and feeds the birds of the air, suffered hunger for you, it is much 
more reasonable that you should endure it for yourself. What 
pretence have you to value yourself on being Christ's servant, if, 
whilst he is fasting, you spend your whole life in eating and 
drinking? if, whilst he is undergoing all kind of hardships for 
you, you will suffer nothing at all for yourself? John xix. If you 
imagine this cross of abstmence is too heavy, reflect on the vine- 
gar and gall which our Saviour tasted on the cross (Matt, xxvii.); 
because, as St. Bernard says, " There is no meat so unsavory but 
which may be made palatable, if mixed with the gall and vinegar 
of Jesus Christ." 

4. Consider the abstinence of all the holy fathers of the desert, 
who, retiring themselves far from any human conversation, cru- 
cified the flesh with all its inordinate appetites, in imitation of 
Christ, and were able, by the favor of this same Lord, to live 
several years on nothing but roots, and observed such rigorous 
abstinence as seems incredible to us. If these men followed Christ 
so close, and got to heaven this way, how can you expect to go 
where they are, if you follow no other path but that of delight 
and pleasures ? 

5. Consider how many poor souls there are that would be glad 
of a little bread and water, to satisfy their hunger, and by this 
you will perceive how merciful and liberal God has been to you, 
in providing so much better for you than he has done for them ; 
and how unreasonable it is to make his liberality and favors the 
instruments of your gluttony. Consider, again, how often you 
have received the sacred Host in your mouth, and never consent 
that death should enter in at the same gate which life comes in at. 
Consider that the pleasure of eating is confined to a very narrow 
space, and a short time. What, then, can be more unreasonable 
than that the w^hole earth, air and sea should not suffice to 
satisfy so small a part of man, and so short a pleasure ? Yet for 
this very often the poor are robbed, for this many outrages are 
committed, that so the hunger of the little ones may become the 
delight of great ones. It is a miserable case, that the satisfying 
of so small a part should cast man headlong into hell, and that all 
his members and senses should suffer everlasting torments for the 
greediness of one of them. Do not you perceive how grossly 
you err in pampering that flesh which will soon be food for 
the worms, and neglect the soul, which shall at the same time be 
brought before the tribunal of God, where, if it be found empty 
of virtues, though the belly be ever so full of its dainties, it shall 
be condemned to everlasting tortures ? Nor shall the body escape 
when the soul is punished, because it was created for the soul, so 



THE sinner's guide, 307 

it shall be tormented with it. So that, despising that which is the 
best part of you, and making much of that which is the worst, 
you unhappily lose both, and destroy yourself with your own 
food ; because you make the flesh, which was given for your help 
and assistance, the very snare to catch your soul in, which shall 
one day be the companion of your torments, as it was here of your 
sins. 

6. Remember how poor and hungry Lazarus was, who desired 
to feed on the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and 
could not get them (Luke xvi.) ; yet he w^as carried after his 
death, by the hands of angels into Abraham's bosom ; whereas the 
rich glutton, who was clothed in purple, was buried in hell. For 
it is impossible that hunger and gluttony, pleasure and temper- 
ance, should meet with the same success in the end ; when ones 
death comes, pleasures will be punished with miseries, and miseriee 
rewarded with pleasures. What advantage have you reaped by all 
your former excesses in eating and drinking ? All you have got is 
the remorse of conscience, which will perhaps sting and gall you 
for all eternity. So that you have quite lost all you have devoured 
with so much lavishness, and all you have kept for yourself is what 
you have given away to the poor ; this is laid up securely for you 
in heaven. 

7. But to prevent your falling into this vice, you must consider, 
in the first place, that when necessity requires to be satisfied, the 
pleasure which Hes hid under this cloak, designs to obtain its end, 
and the more it covers its inordinate appetite, under the pretence 
of a lawful necessity, the more easily men are deceived by it. 
For this reason you are to use a great deal of caution and pru- 
dence in restraining the desires of pleasure, and in putting sensu- 
ality under the government of reason. If, then, you have a 
mind that your flesh should be subject to and serve the soul, make 
your soul submit itself to God ; for it is requisite the soul should 
be governed by God, that it may by that means rule and tame the 
flesh. By the observance of this order we shall be very securely 
conducted, that is, when God shall govern reason, reason direct the 
soul, and the soul command the body, and thus the whole man will 
be entirely reformed and changed. Whilst, on the contrary, if the 
soul be not governed by reason, and if reason does not conform in 
all things to the will of God, the body will be always rising up 
against the soul. 

8. When you are tempted by gluttony, fancy you have already 
enjoyed that short delight, and that it is already over ;. for the 
delight of the taste is hke a past dream, with this difference, that 
the conscience is disturbed after the pleasure is over. Whereas, 
if you overcome the pleasure, your conscience continues quiet and 
easy. There is an excellent sentence of one of the learned an- 
cients, which comes home to our present purpose. It is this : " If 



308 THE sinner's guide. 

you have liad any trouble in the performance of a virtuous action, 
the trouble soon passes away, and the virtue remains ; but if you 
have taken any pleasure in committing an evil action, the pleasure 
is soon over, and then there is nothing left but the filth of it ;" 
Aul. Gel. Noct. Attic. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Remedies against Anger, and the Hatred and Enmities which 

arise from it. 

1. Anger is an inordinate desire of revenge against any one we 
imagine has offended us. The apostle has left us a good medi- 
cine against this vice, when he says, " Let all bitterness, and 
anger, and wrath, and noise, and blasphemy, be removed from 
you, with all kind of malice. Be kind and merciful to one another, 
as God has given you in Christ." Ephes. v. 21, 22. Our Saviour, 
speaking in St. Matthew of this vice, says, " Every one that is 
angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the 
judgment ; but he that shall call him fool, shall be in danger of 
hell-fire ;" Matt. v. 16. 

2. Whenever you find yourself in danger of running into this 
outrageous vice, do not forget to make use of the following con- 
siderations, and to arm yourself as much as you can against the 
temptation. Consider, in the first place, that even beasts live 
peaceably with those of their own kmd. We see that elephants 
are friendly to one another, that sheep and oxen are in their 
flocks and herds, that the little birds fly together; that cranes 
take it by turns to stand sentry In the night; that storks, stags, 
dolphins, and many other creatures, do the same ; every body 
knows the friendships there is between the ants and the bees; 
nay, even wild beasts, be they ever so cruel, are at peace with 
one another. The lion does not vent his fury on lions, bears do 
not fight with bears, one wolf does not devour another, nor do 
dragons fall out amongst themselves. In fine, the very devils, the 
first authors of all our discord, have their mutual ties, and exer- 
cise their tyranny by common consent. Man, whom peace most 
becomes, and who stands most in need of it, is the only creature 
that entertains an inveterate hatred against his own kind. Nor is 
it less remarkable, that nature has furnished all other creatures 
with arms to fight, as the horse with his feet, bulls with horns, 
boars with tusks, bees with stings, birds with beaks and talons, 
and even gnats and flies are not without the power of biting ; but 
thou, O man, whom she has designed for peace and concord, she 
sent into the world naked and unarmed, that thou mightest have 
nothing at all to do harm with. Reflect, then, how unnatural it 



THE sinner's guide. 309 

is for you to endeavor to be revenged, or to return an injury that 
has been offered you, especially with weapons sought without 
yourself, which nature denied you. 

3. Consider, in the next place, that anger and the desire of 
revenge is a vice that becomes none but wild beasts, of whose 
savage fury Solomon says, God gave him the knowledge, and 
that you consequently degenerate and fall very low from the gen- 
erosity and nobleness of your condition, as often as you imitate the 
fury of Hons, serpents and other wild creatures ; Sap. vii. jElian 
relates a passage of a certain lion, that had been wounded once 
with a lance in a chase. A twelvemonth after, the person that 
had given him the wound passed by the same way in company 
with king Juba, who had a great train attending him ; the lion 
knew the man again, and breaking through the guards, notwith- 
standing all their endeavors to beat him off, made no stop till 
he came up to the man that had hurt him, fell on and tore him to 
pieces. We see bulls do the same every day to those that vex 
them. Men that are given to anger and revenge imitate these 
brutal motions, for when they might quiet their fury with reason 
and human discretion, they choose rather to follow the fury and 
impulse of beasts, and to make use of that baser part of their souls, 
which even brutes have as well as they, neglecting at the same 
time that part of them which is more divine, and which they share 
in with angels. If you say it is very hard to quell and tame a heart 
when once it is provoked, why do not you consider how much 
harder that is which the Son of God has undergone for your sake? 
What were you when he shed his blood for the love of you? 
Were you not at that time his enemy ? Why do you not consider 
how patiently he bears with you, notwithstanding the sins you are 
hourly committing against him, and with what mercy he is ready 
to receive you when you return to him ? You will say, perhaps, 
your enemy does not deserve to be pardoned : do you deserve 
any better that God should pardon you ? You will have God 
show his mercy to you, whilst you yourself will exercise nothing 
but justice upon your neighbor. Consider that if your enemy 
does not deserve to be forgiven, you yourself are unworthy of 
pardon, and Jesus Christ is most worthy that you should pardon 
your enemy for the love of him. 

4. Consider that as long as you keep any malice in your heart, 
you cannot make God any offering that he ^vill accept of. Our 
Saviour, for this reason, says, " If you offer your present at the 
altar, and should there remember that your brother has something 
against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go 
first and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and of!"er 
your gift;" Matt. v. 23,' 24. This sufficiently shows what a 
grievous crime brotherly discord is, because, as long as it continues, 
you are one of God's enemies, and do what you will in this state, 



310 THE sinner's guide. 

you will never be able to please him : whereupon St. Gregory 
says, " That all our good actions can have no merit, imless we 
suffer with patience the injuries that are offered us ;" 21 Moral, c. 16. 

5. You are also to consider what he is whom you look on as 
your enemy, for he must of necessity be either a just man or a sin- 
ner. It is certainly a very deplorable thing to wish any ill to such 
a one, and to reckon him your enemy whom God looks on as your 
friend ; but if he be a sinner, it is a case no less lamentable to desire 
to be revenged of another man's wickedness, by being wicked 
yourself, and by making yourself judge in your own cause, to com- 
mit an injustice yourself that you may the more easily punish 
another man's. If the other person should endeavor to revenge 
his injuries as much as you do yours, when w411 your quarrels be at 
an end ? The apostle teaches us a much more generous w^ay of 
overcoming our enemies, when he says, " Overcome evil with 
good" (Rom. xii. 21) ; that is to say, another man's bad actions 
by our own good ones. For whilst you are endeavoring to return 
evil for evil, and are unwilling to yield in any points whatever, you 
may often happen to be shamefully foiled, whilst you are carried 
away by anger and overcome by your passions ; whereas if you 
had resisted it, you would have shown yourself much stronger 
than him who should have taken a town by force of arms. For 
the taking of a city, which is a thing without you, is not half so 
considerable a victory as is the subduing of the passions that are 
within you, the putting of yourself under your own equitable 
laws, and the bridhng and stopping of your anger in its heat and 
its most vigorous sallies. For if you do not suppress it in time, it 
will rise up against you, and make you do that which you will 
afterwards be sorry for. And, what is worst of all, you will scarce 
be able to know what mischief you do, because an angry man 
thinks that whatever he does in order to revenge himself^ he has 
always justice on his side ; nay, he is often deceived so far as to 
imagine, that the very heat of his anger is nothing but a zeal for 
justice, and thus vice hides itself under the color of virtue. 

§ I. — 6. One, therefore, of the most sovereign remedies for 
the better overcoming this vice, is to endeavor to pluck up this 
evil root of an inordinate love for yourself, and of every thing 
else that belongs to you ; otherwise the least w^ord, spoken against 
either you or yours, will make you fly out into a passion ; and 
besides the more naturally you shall find yourself inclined to 
anger, you ought to labor so much the harder for the acquiring 
of patience, by considering beforehand, and preventing all kinds 
of grievances which you are like to meet with in your affairs. 
For the foreseeing of any misfortune lessens the influence it would 
otherwise have had over us. For this reason you are to make a 
strong resolution, as often as you shall perceive yourself breaking 
out into a passion, not to say or do any thing whilst you are in 



THE sinner's guide. 311 

that condition, nor to believe even your own self, but to suspect 
whatever your heart shall at that time dictate to you, let it seem 
ever so just and reasonable ; put off the execution till such time 
as your passion is over, or say the Pater Noster once over or 
oftener, or some other devout prayer. Plutarch tells us of a very 
eminent and learned philosopher, who, taking his leave of a prince, 
his greater friend, advised him never, when he was in a passion, to 
order any thing to be done till he had first said the letters of the 
alphabet over ; to give him to understand what rash and inconsi- 
derate actions the heat of anger would excite him to. 

7. And it is very observable that though this is the worst time 
that can be for a man to resolve on any thing he has to do, yet 
at no time has he a stronger desire to do any thing in than this, 
which obliges you to be very prudent and rigorous in the resisting 
of the temptation. For as a man that is drunk is incapable of act- 
ing according to reason, and afterwards repents him of what he has 
done, as is written of Alexander the Great ; so that he that is drunk 
with the wine of anger, and blinded with the vapors of this pas- 
sion, cannot follow any advice or counsel to-day, but let it appear 
ever so sound and wholesome, he will dislike and condemn it to- 
morrow. For it is certain that the worst counsellors in the world 
are anger, wine, and the desires of the flesh. And, therefore, Solo- 
mon says, " That vmie and women make wise men beside them- 
selves." Where, by wine, he means not only real wine, which is 
wont to blind the reason, but any violent passion, which in some 
manner blinds the senses ; and yet whatsoever a man does in such 
a disposition is, nevertheless, a sin. 

It is very advisable, whenever you are angry, to employ your- 
self about something else, and to put the thing out of your mind 
which was the occasion of your passion ; because, if you take away 
the fuel that nourishes the fire, the flame must, of necessity, go out. 
Endeavor also to love what necessity obliges you to suffer ; for, if 
suff*ering and love do not go together, the patience which appears 
on the outside is very often turned into hatred. Whereupon St. 
Paul having said, " Charity is patient," immediately adds, " It is 
kind ;" because true charity never fails to have a kind and tender 
love for those persons who suffer patiently. In fine, it is further 
advisable to give your neighbor time to let his anger work off* ; for 
if you will but retire a httle when you see him in a passion, you 
will give him room to overcome it by degrees: or, at least, in such 
a conjuncture you must answer him with a great deal of civility 
and mildness ; because, as Soloraan says, " A soft answer appeases 
anger;" Prov. xv. 1. 



312 THE sinner's guide. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Remedies against Sloth. 

1. Sloth is a laziness of mind in performing of any thing that 
is good, and, particularly, a loathing and distaste of spiritual 
things; Cassian. L. 10. We may guess at the danger which 
attends this vice, from the words of our Saviour, " Every tree that 
does not bring forth good fruit, shall be cut down and thrown into 
the fire ;" Matt. vii. 19. And in another place he advises us to live 
with a great deal of care and diligence, a virtue directly opposite 
to this vice : " Watch and pray, because you do not know when 
God will come ;" Mark xiii. 35. 

2. Whenever, therefore, you perceive yourself tempted to this 
sin, defend yourself against it, by the following considerations : — 
Consider, in the first place, v/hat toils and hardships Christ under- 
went for your sake, from the very beginning of his life to the end 
of it ; how often he spent whole nights, without taking any rest, 
in continual prayer, how he travelled up and down, from town to 
town, instructing and curing men of their infirmities and corporal 
ailments ; how his employ was upon such things as conduced to 
our salvation, and, what is much more than all this, how, at the 
time of his passion, he carried the heavy burden of the cross on his 
most sacred shoulders, bending under the weight of all those bitter 
torments which he had been put to but just before. If, therefore, 
the God of majesty himself has taken so much pains to procure 
your salvation, how much more are you obliged to labor for the 
same end ? It was to free you from your sins that this most tender 
Lamb suffered so much, and will not you undergo the least trouble 
in the world, to be discharged from the guilt of them ? Consider 
what pains the apostles took, when they travelled all the world 
over to preach the gospel ; consider how much the martyrs, how 
much the confessors, how much the virgins, how much all the holy 
fathers, that retired into deserts from the conversation of men, 
underwent ; how much, in fine, all the saints now reigning with 
God have suffered ; they who, by their doctrine, by their labors 
and sweat, have defended the true faith of Christ, and increased 
the holy Catholic church to this very day. 

3. Consider that there is nothing in nature altogether idle ; for 
the blessed troops of saints and angels in heaven are continually 
singing God's praises, and adoring him ; the sun, moon and stars, 
with all the heavenly bodies, are in a perpetual circle of labor to 
serve us ; the plants and trees are always increasing, from a small 
root, till they come to their just proportion and bigness ; the ants 
are busy all summer getting in corn, to maintain them in winter ; 
the bees employ themselves in making their honeycombs, and are 
careful to turn out the drones, and such as will not work ; we 



THE sinner's guide. 313 

find the same in all other creatures whatever. And can you, O 
man, who are a rational creature, give yourself up to laziness and 
sloth, and not be ashamed of it, when you see there is not an 
irrational creature but has a horror of this vice, by bare instinct 
of nature ? 

4. Again, if merchants and tradesmen take such pains to gather 
their perishable riches, the preserving of which wants as much 
care and solicitude as the scraping of them together did, what 
pains should not you take, who are to trade for heaven, about the 
acquisition of eternal treasures, which are never to be lost when 
once gained ? 

5. Consider that if you are unwilHng to labor now, while you 
have time and strength, the time may come hereafter, when you 
shall have neither the one nor the other. It is what we have 
daily examples of in others ; the time of this life is short, and full 
of a thousand encumbrances, and, therefore, you ought to have a 
care of losing the opportunities you have of doing good, through 
your own idleness and sloth ; " for the night will come wherein 
nobody shall be able to work ;" John ix. 4. 

6. Consider that the multitude and grievousness of your sins 
require a very rigorous penance, and a great deal of fervor and 
devotion to satisfy for them. St. Peter denied our Sa\dour three 
times, and wept all his life after for it, though he was already 
pardoned ; Matt, xxvii. St. Mary Magdalen bewailed, to the 
last moment of her life, the sins she had committed before her 
conversion ; and yet she heard our Saviour himself, with sweet- 
ness and mercy, say, " Thy sins are forgiven thee ;" Luke vii. I 
omit here, for fear of being too tedious on this matter, the exam- 
ples of several others, who set no shorter bounds to their penance 
than those of their life, though they had never offended God so 
heinously as you have done. And can you, who every day heap 
sins on sins, think any pains or labor too much, that is required 
from you, in satisfaction for your crimes ? Let it, therefore, be 
your chief employ, during the time of grace and mercy, to bring 
forth worthy fruits of penance ; that so you may, by the labors 
you endure in this life, buy off the torments you must otherwise 
suffer in the next ; for though all our endeavors and actions seem 
mean and inconsiderable, yet they are very meritorious, inasmuch 
as they are the effects of grace ; and, therefore, though they are 
but temporal, if we consider only the labor, they are at the same 
time eternal, if we have a regard to the reward ; they are short, 
indeed, as to their continuance, but the crown they are rewarded 
with will last for ever. 

Let us not, therefore, suffer the time which is given to merit in, 

pass away without reaping any good from it ; let us set before our 

eyes the example of a certain holy man, that used to cry out, 

every time he heard the' clock strike out, " O my Lord and my 

40 2C 



314 THE sinner's guide. 

God, here is another hour gone, out of the number of those you 
intended for the making of my life, and for which I am to give you 
an account," 

7. As often as we find ourselves surrounded with troubles, let 
us remember it is by the way of tribulations that we are to enter 
into the kingdom of heaven, " and that none will be crowned, but 
he that fights courageously ;" 2 Tim. ii. 4, 5. But if you imagine 
you have taken sufficient pains, and fought long enough already, 
remember what the Scripture says : " He that perseveres to the 
end shall be saved ;" Matt. xiv. 13. So that all our actions will 
prove unprofitable, and our labors go unrewarded, without this 
virtue of perseverance ; neither shall he that runs get the prize, 
nor he that serves God obtain the last favor, if he does not perse- 
vere. For this reason our Saviour would not come down from 
the cross, when the Jews desired it, that the work of our redemp- 
tion might not be left imperfect; Matt. xxvi. And the same 
reason obliges us, if we intend to tread in the steps our Head has 
marked for us, to use our utmost diligence, and not leave off our 
work till death, because the reward which God will give us is to 
last for all eternity. Let us not cease from doing penance ; let us 
not lay down the cross we have taken up after Christ ; for if we 
do, what profit shall we get by a long and prosperous voyage, if 
we be cast away at last in the very haven ? Eccl. xviii. 

8. You are not to be frightened at the difficulty of the labors, 
nor at the dangers of the combat, for God, who encourages you 
to fight, helps you to overcome, sees the battle, supports you 
when you faint, and crowns you when you conquer. But if at 
any time you should faint under the weight of your labors, you 
may make use of this remedy to bring you to yourself again. Do 
not make any comparison between the trouble of virtue, and the 
pleasure that is in its opposite vice ; but between the pain you 
find in virtue, and that which you must feel, if you should com^ 
mit the sin. Compare the delight the crime may give you, whilst 
you are committing it, with the joys you will one day receive in 
eternal glory ; and by this you will perceive how much more 
advantageous it is to follow virtue than vice. AVhen you have 
won one battle, do not become negligent, for it often happens that 
success makes us careless ; but rather be always on your guard, 
as if you expected another alarm every moment, because it is 
as impossible for a man to live without temptations, as it is for 
the sea to be always in a calm. Besides, a man is generally ex- 
posed to the most violent temptations at his beginning to lead a 
new life, for the enemy does not think it worth his while to tempt 
those whom he is master of already ; he sets on them that are out 
of his jurisdiction and power; so that it is your business to be 
always on your guard ; to be never unprepared, or without your 
arms in your hands, as long as you are posted on the frontiers. 



THE sinner's guide. 315 

And if you should at any time perceive your soul wounded, you 
must not think then to stand with your arms across, or fling your 
shield and sword away, and deliver yourself up to the enemy ; 
you are rather to imitate brave soldiers, who, looking on it as a 
disgrace to be defeated or forced to fly, set on the enemy again, 
and, the more they are wounded, the more vigorously they return 
the strokes. And thus, recovering new strength by your fall, you 
will soon see those persons fly from whom you fled before, and 
you yourself will pursue those who before pursued you. But if, 
as it often happens in an engagement, you should be wounded a 
second time, you are not, therefore, to be discouraged, but remem- 
ber that resolute and brave men do not fight with hopes of never 
being wounded, but with a resolution never to surrender them- 
selves up to their enemies ; for w^e cannot say that a man is 
overcome, when he has received many wounds, but when, after 
having been wounded, he flings his arms away, and loses all his 
courage. If, therefore, you should ever receive a wound, endeavor 
to heal it as soon as you can ; because it is much easier curing 
one than many, and a green wound is sooner closed up than one 
that is old and rankled. 

9. Do not think you have done enough in resisting a temptation, 
but rather endeavor to draw from the temptation incentives to 
virtue ; and so, by your owti diligence and God's grace, you will 
not be worse, but the better for having been tempted, and turn 
all to your own benefit and advantage. If you should be tempted 
either by impurity or gluttony, lessen a little of the good cheer 
you were used to before, though it never went beyond what is 
law^ful and allowable, and increase your fasting and devotion. If 
avarice should assault you, be more frequent in alms and good 
works. If you should be set on by vain-glory, humble yourself 
so much the more in all things. If you do so, the devil may 
perhaps be afraid to solicit you again, for fear of giving you an 
opportunity of bettering yourself, and of doing good works, when 
it is his desire that every act you do should be evil. Let your 
chief business be to fly idleness, and never to be so much out of 
employment as not to attend to something that may be for your 
advantage, nor so much employed as, in the midst of your busi- 
ness, not to endeavor to lift up your heart to God, and to treat 
somjetimes with him. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Of some other Sins which every good Christian must endeavor to 

avoid. 

1. Besides these seven capital sins, there are several others that 
spring from them, which every good Christian ought to avoid as 
carefully as those we have already spoken of. One of the chiefest 



316 THE SINNER S GUIDE. 

of these is the taking of God's name in vain, because this sin 
points directly at God, and is in itself much more heinous than 
any we commit against our neighbor, let it be ever so great. 
Nor is this true only when a man swears by God's own name, but 
when he swears by the cross, by any of the saints, or by his own 
salvation ; because any of these oaths is a mortal sin, if brought to 
assert or favor a lie, and severely censured in holy writ as highly 
injurious to the divine Majesty. Jt is true that when a man 
swears to a lie, without reflecting on it, he does not sin mortally ; 
because where there is no determination of the will, and where 
reason does not pass a judgment on the matter, there can be no 
mortal sin. But this is not to be understood of those persons 
who have a custom of swearing without any kind of scruple, 
without considering either how or what it is they swear, and 
without making the least endeavor towards breaking off the bad 
habit. Such men as these, being accustomed to swear to a lie, 
without ever reflecting on it, are by no means free from sin, 
because it is what they both might and ought to have been careful 
in. Nor can they allege, for their excuse, that they did not think 
of what they said, or did not design to swear to a he ; because, 
since they will not break off this habit, it is not their will to avoid 
the effects of it, and, therefore, these and such like inconveniences 
are always looked on as voluntary sins. 

2. For this reason, every Christian ought to labor for the root- 
ing out of this evil custom, that so these inadvertences may not 
be reckoned as mortal sins. The best method for effecting this is 
to take the advice given us by our Saviour, and after him by his 
apostle St. James : " Above all things, my brethren, do not swear ; 
neither by heaven, nor by the earth; swear not in any other 
manner whatever. But let your discourse be yea, yea; nay, nay; 
that you may not fall under the judgment" (Matt. v. 34; Jac. v. 
12) ; which is, that you may not be wrought on by custom to swear 
to what is false, and to be condemned to everlasting death. Nor 
is a man only to endeavor to avoid this sin in himself; he is obhged 
to excite in his children, his servants, and in all his family, a horror 
and detestation of the same vice, and to reprove his acquaintance 
and companions for it. And when he happens himself to be 
careless in this point, let him, in punishment of his neglect, give 
some alms, say a Pater Noster or an Ave Maria, not so much in 
penance for this fault, as for a memorial and advertisement to him 
never to fall into it again. 

§ I. Of Detraction, Scoffing and Judging rashly. — 3. Another 
sin we are to be very diligent in avoiding is, that of detraction, 
as much used in the world as the former; for there is no house 
so strong, no society so religious, or place so sacred, as to escape 
the lash of a Ucentious tongue. But though this vice is familiar 
to all sorts of persons (for the world, as it gives good men suffi- 
cient reason to weep by its daily follies, so it suppKes the weak 



THE sinner's guide. 317 

with matter of calumny and slander), yet there are always some 
persons to be met with, that are more naturally and more pas- 
sionately inclined to this vice than others. For as there are some 
palates that can relish nothing that is sweet, and love nothing 
but what is bitter or sour, so there are some kinds of men so cor- 
rupt in themselves, and so full of a heavy and melancholy humor, 
that no subject of virtue, nor any commendation of one's neigh- 
bor, savors well with them, but they only delight in railing, scoff- 
ing and detraction. So that they are, as it were, asleep and 
dumb to all other discourse ; but as soon as any man happens to 
touch on this string, they are presently awake again, and ready to 
lash out on this subject. 

4. That you may, therefore, conceive a great hatred of so hurt- 
ful and execrable a vice as this is, consider three great evils it 
draws after it. The first is, that it is not very far from mortal sin, 
for there is but a very little distance between censuring and de- 
traction ; and these two vices being so near neighbors, it is easy 
to pass from the one to the other ; as the philosophers say, that 
those elements which agree in any one quality may be easily con- 
verted into one another. Thus we see how often it happens, 
that men, when they begin to censure, descend without any scruple 
from general imperfections to particular, from public to private, 
and from little to great ones. By this means they blemish their 
neighbor's reputation, and leave it without endeavoring to wipe 
off the spot. For when the tongue is once going, and the desire 
or itch of magnifying things once prevails, it is as hard a matter to 
suppress the motion of the heart, as it is to stop the violence 
of the flame when blown on by the wind, or to keep in a hard- 
mouthed horse, when once he has got his head : then the railer 
has no respect for any man, and never stops till he discovers the 
most hidden secrets. This was the reason why the author of 
Ecclesiasticus desired so earnestly to have a guard set at this little 
gate, when he said, "Who will set a guard over my mouth, and 
a strong seal upon my lips, that they may not be the occasion of 
my fall, and that my own tongue may not condemn me ?" Eccl. 
xxii. 33. He that said it, very well knew the great consequence 
and the difficulty of this affair, because he expected his cure from 
none but God, who is the only Physician that can cure this dis- 
temper. According to these words of Solomon : " It is for a man 
to prepare his soul, but it belongs to God for to govern the tongue" 
(Prov. xvi. 1) ; so weighty a concern this is. 

5. The second evil which attends this vice is, its being very 
prejudicial and dangerous ; because there are three evils in it, at 
least, which cannot be avoided. The first concerns him that 
speaks, the second those that hearken and consent to it, and the 
third concerns the absent who are talked of. It is a common 
saying, that walls have ears, and words have wings, and men 

2C2 



318 the; sinner's guide. 

love to seek new friends, and to ingratiate themselves with others, 
by carrying tales and stories, under pretence of being concerned 
for the honor of those persons ill spoken of; and so when these 
things come to the ears of the party that has been defamed, he is 
offended, and falls into a rage and passion against the man that 
defamed him; whence follows irreconcilable enmity, and some- 
times duels and bloodshed. For this reason the wise man said, 
"The tale-bearer and the double-tongued shall be cursed; be- 
cause he has disturbed a great many that were at peace ;" Eccl. 
xxviii. 15. And all this, as you see, comes from a word spoken 
out of season : for, according to the expression of the wise man, 
" A fire proceeds from but one spark ;" Ibid xi. 34. 

6. This vice, upon account of these great damages, is com- 
pared in the Scripture sometimes to a razor, which shaves the 
hair 'wdthout being felt (Ps. li. 2) ; sometimes, again, to bows and 
arrows, which shoot at a great distance, and wound those that are 
absent (Prov. 18) ; at other times to serpents, that make no noise 
when they bite, yet leave their poison in the wound ; Ps. vii. The 
Holy Ghost is pleased to give us to understand by these compari- 
sons the malice and evil of that vice which is so great that the 
wise man says, " The stroke of a whip leaves a mark on the skin, 
but that of a bad tongue bruises the bones ;" Eccl. xxviii. 21. 

7. The third evil that attends this vice is, its being most abomi- 
nable and infamous against men : because every body flies as 
naturally from a detractor as from a poisonous serpent. And, 
therefore, the wise man says, " A man that is profuse of his tongue 
is terrible in his city;" Eccl. ix. 85. Are not these evils great 
enough to make you abhor a vice which is at once so hurtful 
and so unprofitable ? Why will you make yourself odious in the 
sight of both God and man, without reaping any advantage by it? 
especially by a sin that is so frequent and usual that you can 
scarce speak one word without exposing yourself to the danger 
of falling into it. Look upon your neighbor's life as a forbidden 
tree, which you should not so much as touch. You are to be 
careful in endeavoring never to speak well of yourself, nor ill of 
others, because the one is vanity, the other detraction. Talk of 
all persons as if they were virtuous men, and men of honor, and 
let all the world believe there is no wicked man in it by your dis- 
course. Thus you will avoid many sins, scruples and remorses 
of conscience ; - you will gain the favor both of God and man, and 
be respected as much by others as you respect every body else. 
Put a bridle in your mouth, and be always ready to repel and 
swallow down those words which you perceive will be too sharp 
and biting. Be assured that it is one of the most prudent and 
discreet actions you can do to curb your tongue, and that there is 
scarce any empire so great as that which a man has when he knows 
how to command and govern this member. 



THE sinner's guide. 319 

8. Do not think you are free from this vice when you use craft 
in your detraction by praising a man first, when you design to 
decry him. For there are some detractors, Hke surgeons, who 
chafe the vein gently before they open it, that their lancet may 
find the easier passage and the blood spurt out more freely. The 
royal prophet, speaking of such persons, says, " Their words are 
smoother than oil, but at the same time they are arrows." Ps. 
liv. 22. 

9. And as it is a great virtue to forbear all detraction, so it is 
a much greater not to rail at those who have done us any injury. 
So that the more we find ourselves inclined to say any thing 
against them, the greater generosity it will be to say nothing, and 
to subdue this passion ; for where the danger is greatest, there 
the most precaution is to be used. 

10. Nor is it enough to forbear yourself from murmuring and 
detracting ; you must also shut your ears against all that do so, 
following the advice of Ecclesiasticus : " Stop your ears (says he) 
with thorns, and hearken not to a backbiting tongue ;" Eccl. 
xxviii. 28. He thinks it not sufficient for you to stop your ears 
with cotton or with any thing that is soft ; he would have you do 
it with thorns, that so the words which otherwise you would have 
heard with pleasure, may not only make no impression upon your 
heart, but may prick the heart of him that delivers them, when he 
sees by your looks that you are displeased at what he has told 
you. Solomon gives us the same advice in clearer terms, when he 
says, " The north wind scatters the clouds, and a severe counte- 
nance puts a stop to a detracting tongue ;" Prov. xxv. 23. " Be- 
cause (as St. Jerome says) an arrow out of a bow cannot enter into 
a hard stone, but, on the contrary, flies back again, and sometimes 
returns upon the man that shot it ;" Epist. 2. ad Nepotiam. 

11. For this reason you are to impose silence upon any one 
that detracts, if he is your inferior, or of such a condition and 
rank that you may do it without offence ; if you cannot do this, 
you must, at least, use some cunning to divert the discourse ; or 
if that will not do, let the severity of your countenance make him 
ashamed of what he has said. By this means, being civilly told 
of his fault, he will turn his discourse and talk of something else. 
But should you, on the contrary, countenance him in the least, you 
will encourage him to go on, and so make yourself as guilty by hear- 
ing him, as he is by talking ; for as it is a very criminal action to 
set a house on fire, it would be very blameable for another to stand 
warming his fingers by it, when charity bids him fetch water to 
help to put it out. 

12. But of all detractions the greatest is, when a man speaks 
ill of virtuous persons, because it is the ready way to discourage 
those that are but weak and faint-hearted, and to give an abso- 
lute repulse to such as have no courage at all, so as to deter them 



320 THE sinner's guide. 

from entering into the way of virtue. This would be laying a 
stumbling-block in their way that are but just beginning to walk, 
though those that are quite grown up know how to pass over it. 
And that you may have no reason to say this is but a small and 
inconsiderable scandal, reflect upon these words of our Saviour : 
" Whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe 
in me, it were better for him to have a mill-stone hung about his 
neck, and to be sunk to the very bottom of the sea ;" Matt, xviii. 
6. You are, therefore, to account it as a kind of sacrilege to 
make scandalous reflections on the servants of God ; for, sup- 
posing they are such as the wicked represent them, yet the cha- 
racter they bear should make you have a respect for them, es- 
pecially since God Almighty, speaking of the love he has for them, 
says, "Whosoever shall touch you, touches the apple of my eye ;" 
Zach. ii. 8. 

13. Whatever we have here said against detractors and back- 
biters may be applied to those that jeer and scoff" at others ; and 
with much more reason, because this vice, besides it having all 
in it that the other has, is never without a tincture of pride, pre- 
sumption and contempt of others. So that, upon this considera- 
tion, w^e are more obliged to avoid this vice than the former. 
God, in the old law, has given us a particular caution against it, 
in these words : "Be not a backbiter, nor a scoffer amongst the 
people;" Levit. xix. 16. And, therefore, there is no need of 
saying any more of the deformity of it, for what has been said may 
suffice. 

§ II. Of rash Judgments, and of the Commandments of the 
Church. — 14. To these two sins we may add that of rash judg- 
ment, as coming very near to them, because detractors and jeerers 
not only speak ill of things which really are, but whatever they 
imagine or fancy. And that they may never want something to 
be biting upon, they furnish themselves w^th matter whenever 
there is occasion, by rash judgments and secret suspicions, by 
turning the worst side of a thing outwards, when they might as 
easily turn the best ; and this is in opposition to what our Saviour 
has commanded us, saying, " Judge not, and you shall not be 
judged ; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned ;" Matt, 
vii. 1. This may often happen to be a mortal sin, if the matter a 
man passes his sentence upon is of concern and weight, and the 
judgment grounded on a shallow and weak foundation. But if it 
proves to be rather a suspicion than a judgment, it will not then be 
a mortal sin, because the act is not entire and perfect. 

15. Besides these sins against God, there are those which a 
man commits against the five commandments of the church, 
which obhge us by precept; as hearing mass on Sundays and 
holidays, confessing our sins once a year, communicating at 
Easter, fasting all days appointed by the church, and paying of 



THE sinner's guide. 321 

tithes. The commandment of fasting binds from one-and-twenty 
years of age and upwards, more or less, according to the dis- 
cretion of the confessor or curate, if a man is not sick, or very 
weak, or old laboring men, nurses that give suck, or women 
that are with child, and such as are not able to afford them- 
selves one good meal a day ; and so there may be other lawful 
impediments. 

16. As to the hearing of mass upon Sundays and holidays, a 
man must endeavor to assist there, not only in body but in 
spirit, having his mind recollected, and wdth a profound silence, 
with his heart fixed upon God or upon the mysteries of the mass, 
or busied with some other pious thoughts, or saying some devout 
prayers. 

17. And as for those persons who have servants and children, 
and a family to look after, they should be very careful and diligent 
in seeing that all under their charge hear mass upon holidays : and 
if they cannot let them go to high mass, because of their being 
employed about necessary business, at least they must make them 
go some time in the morning to hear a private mass, that so they 
may comply with their obligation. There are many masters of 
families very blameable and negligent in this point ; and they will 
answer for it to God. It is true, when there is any just and 
pressing necessity that hinders a person from hearing mass, as his 
looking after a sick person or any such employment, it will not be 
then imputed to him as a sin, because necessity excuses a man 
from this law. 

18. These are the most usual sins which man generally falls 
into. It is our duty always to endeavor to avoid them all : some 
because they are mortal, others because they are very near to 
mortal sins, and others, again, because they are more heinous of 
themselves than other common venial sins. This is the way to 
preserve our innocence, and those white garments which Solomon 
requires of us, when he says, " Let your garments be always 
white, and let not your head ever want oil" (Eccl. ix. 8), that is, 
the unction of divine grace, which enlightens and strengthens us 
upon all occasions, and w^hich instructs us in and encourages us to 
all kind of good. 



CHAPTER X. 

Of venial Sins. 

1. Though these be the chief sins you are carefully to avoid, 

yet do not think you are, therefore, allowed to run freely into all 

venial sins. On the contrary, I earnestly entreat you, not to be 

one of those who make no scruple of committing a sin when once 

41 



35^2 THE sinner's guide. 

they know it is not mortal. Consider what the wise man says: 
" He that despises small things, will fall by degrees into greater ;" 
Eccl. xix. 1. Think of the old proverb. For w^ant of a nail we 
lose a shoe ; for want of a shoe we lose a horse, and for w^ant of a 
horse a trooper. Houses that fall with age begin their decay 
with some little flaw, which by degrees grows bigger, till the whole 
building comes to the ground. Consider that though in reality 
neither seven thousand venial sins, nor seven thousand to those, 
can make up one mortal, yet that which St. Augustine says is true, 
viz. " Do not despise venial sins, because they are but little ; but 
be afraid of committing them because they are many : we often 
see, that little animals may kill a man, when there is a great num- 
ber of them : is not a grain of sand a very small thing ? and yet 
if you overload a vessel with it, it will certainly sink. How small 
are drops of water I yet they make the greatest rivers, and bear 
down the most stately edifices in the world." Super Joan. Trac. 
12. ad fin. Tom. 9. et L. de decern chordis, c. 11. et L. de 
Medicina. Poenitentium ad fin. Tom. 9. c. 2. The meaning of 
this sentence of St. Augustine is, not that many venial amount to 
a mortal sin, but that they dispose the soul to mortal sin, and very 
often make a man fall into it. Nor is this only true, but that also 
which St. Gregory says, " That to fall into small sins is sometimes 
more dangerous than to fall into great ones ;" In Pastora, p. 3. c. 
33. Because the greater a fault is, the more it discovers itself, 
and is, by consequence, the more easy to be remedied ; whereas 
little faults, being looked upon as nothing, the more securely a 
man commits them, the greater danger he is in of falling frequently 
into the same again. 

2. In fine, venial sins, though ever so little, are very prejudicial 
to the soul, because they take away devotion, disturb the peace 
and quiet of conscience, extinguish the heat of charity, weaken the 
heart, destroy the vigor of the soul, impair the strength of the 
spiritual hfe, and, in short, resist in some manner the Holy Ghost, 
himself, and hinder his operations in us. For this reason we 
are obh^ed to use the utmost diligence for avoiding of these sins, 
since it is certain there is no enemy, how mean soever, but may 
be able to do us much harm, if we do not secure ourselves against 
him. 

3. Now, if you would know wherein these sins particularly 
consist ; I answer, that, in a little anger, gluttony or vanity, in 
idle words and thoughts, in immoderate laughing and jesting, in 
the loss of time, in sleeping too much, in lies and flatteries, and 
the like. 

4. We have here described three sorts of sins ; one which is 
generally mortal, another that is commonly venial, and a third 
that lies, as it were, between these two extremes ; so that they 
are sometimes mortal, and sometimes only venial. It is requisite 



THE sinner's guide. 323 

we shun all these in general, much more than those which are in 
the middle, and most of all those that are mortal ; because by 
those alone our peace with God is disturbed, our friendship 
violated, and by the same we lose all the goods of grace, and all 
the infused virtues ; though faith and hope, it is true, cannot be 
lost but by the contrary acts. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Of some other shorter Remedies against all sorts of Sins, hut 
particularly those Seven called Capital. 

1. The several considerations we have here set down will 
serve to keep the soul in good order, and well armed against all 
kinds of sins ; yet during the engagement itself, that is, when 
you are tempted to any of these sins, you make use of these short 
sentences, found amongst the writings of a certain holy man, who 
used to arm himself thus, upon all occasions, against every one of 
these vices. 

2. When pride assaulted him, he said, " When I consider with 
what an excess of humility the most high and glorious Son of God 
has humbled himself, for the love of me, no creature in the world 
can despise me so much, as to make me think I do not deserve to 
be much more contemned and despised." 

3. If covetousness set upon him, his saying was, " Having once 
understood, that nothing can satisfy my soul but God alone, I 
cannot but persuade myself that it must be a great folly to seek 
any thing besides him." 

4. As often as impurity attacked him, he said, " Being sensible 
of the great dignity my body is raised to, when I receive my 
Saviour's most sacred body, I should account myself guilty of a 
horrible sacrilege, should I defile the temple he has consecrated to 
his service, with the filth oi carnal sins." 

5. If he w^as tempted to anger, he said, " No man could ever 
injure him so far as to disturb and trouble him, when he reflected 
upon the injuries he had offered God." 

6. His defence against hatred and envy was, " I cannot wish 
any hurt to my neighbor, or refuse to pardon any man, knowing 
with what mercy my God has vouchsafed to receive such a sinner 
as I am." 

7. Against gluttony, he said, " That if any man would but call 
to mind the potion of vinegar and gall which they gave the Son 
of God for his last refreshment, in the midst of all the torments he 
suffered for us, he would be ashamed to endeavor to please his 
palate with dainty meats, being obliged to undergo something for 
his own sin&" 



324 THE sinner's guide. 

8. His saying against sloth was, " Since I have heen taught, 
that, for a little toil and trouble here, I may purchase for myself 
everlasting glory, all the pains I can possibly take, for the obtain- 
ing of this happiness, seem very inconsiderable." 

§ I. — 9. St. Augustine gives us another sort of short remedies 
against all vices, though some persons attribute them to St. Leo 
the pope : he shows us, in the same, how, on the one side, each 
particular vice tempts us, and what proposals it makes us ; and, 
on the other side, he supplies us with such considerations and 
reasons, as we are to make use of against it, which I will here set 
down, looking upon them as very useful and beneficial. 

10. Pride, therefore, begins first to speak to us, after this 
manner : Certainly you excel others in knowledge, m eloquence, 
in wealth, and in several other good qualities ; it is, therefore, rea- 
sonable you should have but little esteem for others, as being so 
far above them. But humility answers, that you are but dust 
and ashes, mere rottenness and corruption at present, and designed 
to be the co-mpanion and food of worms in a very little time. 
And supposing you are as great as you imagine, yet the greater 
you are, if you do not humble yourself the more, you will soon 
cease to be what you were. Are you greater than the angel that 
fell? Do you shine brighter upon earth than Lucifer did in 
heaven ? Now, if his pride was the occasion of his falling from 
so high a state of glory, into such an abyss of misery, how can 
you think of rising from such an excess of misery to such a height 
of glory, when you are in all respects as proud as he was ? 

11. Vain-glory comes next, and says. Do all the good you can, 
and let every body know it, that they may take you for a good 
man, that the whole world may reverence and honor you, and that 
no one may show you the least disrespect. The fear of God 
answers : It is a most notorious folly to fling away the purchase 
of eternal glory, for a little temporal honor. Endeavor, therefore, 
to hide all the good actions you do, at least in desire, because, if 
you have a real desire to conceal them, it will be no vanity in 
you if they should come to be known ; for that cannot be called 
public which in your wishes is secret, 

12. Hypocrisy says, Since you have nothing in you that is 
good, endeavor at least to make a man believe you have what you 
have not, that you may not be hated by all the world. Sincerity 
answers, It is the proper duty of a true Christian not to endeavor 
to pass for a good man, but to labor to make himself so ; for all 
that you can get by imposing on others is your own condemnation 
and ruin. 

13. Contempt and disobedience say. Who are you, that should 
be subject to others inferior to you ? It is but just you should 
command and they obey, since they do not come up to you, 
either in wit, judgment or virtue. It is enough for you to keep 



THE sinner's guide. 325 

the commandments of God ; you need not trouble your head with 
those of men. Subjection and obedience answer, The same rea- 
son that obHges you to an observance of God's commandments 
obliges you to submit to what men decree ; because God himself 
has said, " Whosoever hears you hears me, and he that despises 
you despises me ;" Luke x. 16. But if you say that this stands 
wdth reason and justice when he that commands is a good man, 
and not otherwise, hear what the apostle says against this opinion : 
" There is no power but what comes from God, and all things that 
come from God are ordained ;" Rom. xiii. 11. So that it is none 
of your business to know what kind of men your superiors are ; all 
you are to do is to know what they command, and to put their 
orders in execution. 

14. Envy says, In what are you less than this or that man ? 
Why, then, should not you have as much respect showed you as 
they have, or more ? How many things can you do which they ^ , 
cannot ? It is, therefore, unjust that they should be made equal 

to you, or set over you. Brotherly love answers, If you are more 
virtuous than others, you will be much securer in a low place 
than in a high one ; because, the higher the place a man falls 
from, the more dangerous will be his fall. Put the case that there 
are many men as rich or richer than you ; what are you the worse 
for it ? You ought to consider that, whilst you envy another that 
is in a better station, you make yourself like him of whom it is 
said, " By the envy of the devil death came into the world, and all 
those who are of his side imitate him ;" Wisd. ii. 24, 25. 

15. Hatred says, God Almighty can never expect you should 
love him that is always contradicting and opposing you in all 
things ; that is always detracting and backbiting you ; that is 
always upbraiding you, to your face, with all your failings ; that 
is, in fine, perpetually thwarting you in all your words and ac- 
tions; for it is certain he would never thus trample on you 
if he did not hate you. True love answers. Supposing these things 
are detestable in a man, must you, therefore, hate the image of 
God that is stamped on him ? Did not Jesus Christ, even when 
he hung on the cross, love his enemies? Did he not advise us to 
the same, a little before his departure out of this world ? Banish, 
therefore, all the bitterness of hatred from your breast, and instead 
of it take in the sweetness of love ; for, besides the eternal consi- 
derations and reasons that oblige us to it, there is nothing in this 
life more pleasant, nothing more sweet, than love ; and nothing, 
on the contrary, more bitter, nothing more distasteful, than hatred, 
which, like a canker, is always preying on the bowels that first 
gave it being. 

16. Detraction is always crying. Who can endure this? who 
can conceal the crimes such or such persons have committed, 
without being accessory to them ? Brotherly correction answers, 

2D 



326 THE sinner's guide. 

We are neither to publish nor consent to our neighbor's sins 
(Matt. xvii. 15) ; but he that has done amiss is to be corrected 
with charity, and to be borne with patience. Besides, it is some- 
times convenient to take no notice of a man when he has committed 
a fault, that you may afterwards have a more favorable opportunity 
of reproving him. 

17. Anger says. How can you have patience to endure the inju- 
ries that are offered you? Nay, it is a sin to bear any longer; 
and, if you do not resent them, you will have greater affronts put 
on you every day. Patience answers, If you would but reflect 
on our Saviour's passion, there is no wrong which you would not 
be willing to put up with. For, as St. Peter says, " Christ has 
suffered for ns, leaving us an example that we should follow his 
steps ; who, when he suffered, never was angry with, nor threat- 
ened them that used him ill;" 1 Pet. ii.21. We are, therefore, 

. more particularly obliged to imitate our Saviour in this point, con- 
sidering that what we suffer is so little in comparison of what he 
underwent for us ; for he was affronted, despised, buffeted, scourged, 
crowned with thorns and crucified ; and yet we sinful and misera- 
ble wretches fly into a passion at every little word, and the least 
incivility that is, touches us to the quick. 

18. Hardness of heart says. How can you speak kindly to men 
that are as stupid, ignorant and senseless as mere beasts, and 
who very often grow proud and saucy, the kinder you are to 
them ? Meekness answers, Your advice is not to be taken in this 
point, but the apostle's, who says, " It does not become the ser- 
vant of God to quarrel, but to carry himself meekly to all per- 
sons ;" 2 Tim. ii. 24. This fault of replying and wrangling, it is 
true, is much more dangerous in inferiors than it is in superiors ; 
because it often happens that they lose the respect they should 
have for those that are put over them, when they are too kindly 
dealt with, and laugh at and ridicule the humility and sweetness 
their superiors show them. 

19. Presumption and rashness say, God in heaven is witness of 
all your actions, and, therefore, you need not trouble your head 
about the opinion men have of you. Our duty to our neighbor 
answers. You are not to give other persons occasion of murmuring, 
or of revealing all they think and suspect of you ; but if, what they 
find fault with you for is true, tell them sincerely you have done 
amiss ; if false, you are with humility to deny it. 

20. Sloth and idleness say. You will soon lose your sight if you 
give yourself thus continually to study, prayers and tears ; if you 
spend a good part of the night in performing of these exercises, 
you will soon be distracted ; if you tire yourself out with too 
much labor, you will become unfit for any spiritual exercise. Dili- 
gence and labor answer, Why do you promise yourself many 
years to undergo these hardships and labors? Who has given 



THE sinner's guide. 327 

you security that you shall live till to-morrow, nay, till this very 
hour be over? Have you forgot what our Saviour said, " Watch, 
because you neither know the day nor the hour ;" Matt. xxv. 23. 
It is your business, therefore, to shake off all idleness and sloth ; 
because the kingdom of heaven is not for the slothful and tepid, 
but for such only as are diligent and resolute. 

21. Covetousness says. If you give away what you have to 
strangers, what will be left to maintain your own family ? Mercy 
answers. Remember what happened to the rich man in the gospel, 
that was clothed in purple and the finest linen : he was not con- 
demned for taking away another man's goods, but for not giving 
away his own ; Luke xvi. For this he was condemned to hell- 
fire, and reduced to such extremity there as not to be able to 
obtain one drop of water, though he begged it with so much ear- 
nestness, for not giving the crumbs that fell from his table to a 
poor man that was begging at his door. 

22. Gluttony says, God created all things for our nourishment; 
if, therefore, you refuse to eat, you slight God Almighty's favors. 
Temperance answers. What you say is true in one respect, for 
God created all things that men might not die for hunger. But 
to prevent his committing any excess, he commanded him to be 
abstemious ; and not being so is reckoned one of the chief sins 
that drew down God's judgments upon the unhappy city of 
Sodom, and was the occasion of its utter ruin ; Ezech. xvi. For 
that reason, a man, though he be in good health, is to take his 
meat as a sick man does his physic, that is, only to supply the 
present necessity. So that, if he would quite break himself off 
that vice, he must, besides prescribing himself a certain quantity, 
and no more, despise all dainties, unless either want of health or 
charity oblige him to the contrary. 

23. Empty joy says, Why do you conceal and smother the joy 
of your heart ? Let every body be sensible of your joy, and talk 
pleasantly and merrily with your companions, to divert them, and 
to make them laugh moderately. Gravity answers, What is the 
meaning of all this mirth and pleasantry ? Have you overcome 
the devil ? Is the time of your banishment expired, and are you 
called home to your own country ? You have forgot, perhaps, 
what our Saviour said, " You shall weep and lament, but the 
world shall rejoice ; nevertheless, your sorrow shall be turned into 
joy ;" John xvi. 20. Put a stop, therefore, I advise you, to this 
vain delight ; for you have not yet weathered all the storms that 
are so frequent on this dangerous sea. 

24. Talkativeness says. There is no hurt in talking much, if a 
man talks well; as, on the contrary, he is not free from sin, 
though he speaks but little, if what he says be ill. Discreet 
silence answers. What you say is true ; yet it often happens that, 
when a man would say many good things, he makes a bad end 



328 THE sinner's guide. 

of what he began well. And, therefore, the wise man says, 
" Where there is much talk there will be sin ;" Prov. x. 19. And 
if you should be so fortunate, in talking much, not to speak any 
thing that is hurtful, it will be very hard to avoid all idle words, 
which you must give an account of at the day of judgment. You 
must, therefore, be moderate in your talk, be it ever so good, lest 
excess should make it quite otherwise. 

25. Impurity says. Why do you not enjoy pleasures and de- 
lights, since you do not know what may happen to you ? It is 
unreasonable to lose such a favorable opportunity, when you can- 
not tell how soon it may pass away. For, if God had not de- 
signed that men should enjoy these pleasures, he would never have 
created men and women at the beginning. Chastity answers, I 
would not have you be ignorant of what is prepared for you after 
this life. For, if you will but live purely and chastely here, you 
will enjoy such pleasures and delights as shall never have an end ; 
but if, on the contrary, you live lewdly here, you shall be con- 
demned to torments for all eternity hereafter ; and the more sensi- 
ble you are of the short duration of these false pleasures, the more 
reason you have to live chastely ; for how wretched an hour's 
pleasure is that which is purchased at the expense of a life that is 
to last for ever ! 

26. All that has been hitherto said may serve to furnish us with 
such spiritual weapons as are necessary for this combat ; by the 
help of which we shall obtain the first part of virtue, which is to 
abstain from sin, and to maintain the post which God puts us in, 
and in which he himself Hves, that it be not surprised by the 
enemy. If we defend it with resolution, we shall have the honor 
of entertaining this heavenly guest; because, as St. John says, 
" God is charity, and he that remains in charity remains in God, 
and God in him ;" 1 John iv. 16. And that man is in charity 
who never does any thing contrary to it, and nothing is contrary 
to it but mortal sin ; against which, all that we have said in this 
book is to be applied as a remedy and preservative. 



THE sinner's guide. 329 

BOOK II. 

PART THE SECOND. 

CONTAINING SUCH RULES AS ARE REQUISITE FOR THE PRACTICE OF 

VIRTUE. 

CHAPTER I. 

Of three Kinds of Virtues, wherein consists the Fulness of all 

Justice. 

1. Having, in the first part of this book, spoken of those vices 
which pollute and darken the soul, let us now treat of such virtues 
as adorn and beautify it with the spiritual ornament of justice. 
And as it is the property of justice to give every one his due, 
whether it be God, our neighbor or ourself, so there are three sorts 
of virtues that compose it ; some are particularly for the perform- 
ance of the duty man owes to God, some, again, for that he owes 
his neighbor, and others for that he owes to himself. This is all he 
has to do, in order to satisfy the obligations of virtue and justice ; 
that is, for the making of himself truly just and virtuous, the only 
thing we pretend to here. 

2. If you would know, in short, how that is to be done, and have 
it made more plain by a few familiar comparisons, I say, a man will 
comply exactly with these three duties, if he has but these three 
things : — the heart of a son towards God, the heart of a man to- 
wards his neighbor, and that of a judge towards himself. In these 
three points of justice, the prophet placed the very perfection of 
our good, when he said, " I will show thee, O man, what good con- 
sists in, and what the Lord requires from thee ; it is that thou do 
judgment, that thou love mercy, and that thou walk humbly with 
him;" Mich. vi. 8. The doing of judgment shows a man what he 
owes to himself ; mercy, what he owes to his neighbors, and walk- 
ing humbly with God, what his obligation is to him, since all our 
good depends on these three things ; 1 Par. Tra. 4. c. 3. We will 
handle them now at large, having only spoke of them briefly in the 
Memorial of a Christian Life, with a design to explain them more 
fully in this place. 



CHAPTER II. 

Of Man^s Duty to Himself 

1. Since charity begins at home let us now begin as the 
prophet did, that is, with the doing of justice or judgment ; which 
42 2D2 



330 THE sinner's guide. 

is the part of a judge, and which every man ought to act towards 
himself. The duty of a good judge is to see that the state be 
orderly and reformed. And because in this little state or com- 
monwealth of man there are two principal parts to reform, that 
is, the body with all its members and senses, and the soul, with 
all its affections and powers, it is requisite those things should be 
all governed and directed according to the rules of virtue, which 
we shall here lay down ; and thus man will perform his duty to 
himself. 

§ I. Of the Reformation of the Body. — 2. The first thing to 
be done in order to reforming of the body, is to settle a just de- 
corum, observing what St. Augustine says, in his rule, " That 
there should be nothing in our gait, our posture, our dress, or in 
any thing else, that may give offence to our neighbor • but that 
every thing in us should be conformable to the sanctity of our 
profession ;" V. Cassian. L. 5. c. 12. To this end, he that serves 
God must endeavor to carry himself towards all men with that 
modesty, with that humility, with that sweetness and meekness, 
that every one he converses with may profit and be edified by his 
good example. The apostle would have us be like sweet perfume, 
which immediately communicates its scent to every thing that 
touches it, and makes the hands it has once been in smell like 
itself; for such ought to be the discourse of those that serve God, 
such their actions, their behavior and their conversation, that 
every body who has any thing to do with them may be edified 
and improved by their example ; 2 Cor. ii. 15. This is one of the 
greatest benefits that flows from modesty, and an outward com- 
posure which is a kind of silent sermon, by which we invite men 
by our good example, and without the least noise of words, to 
praise God and to love virtue, according to what our Saviour 
commanded us, when he said, "Let your light so shine before 
men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father 
who is in heaven;" Matt. v. 16. What Isaias says comes to 
the same purpose : " The servants of God shall be called trees of 
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified ;" 
Isa. Ixi. 3. Yet we are not to think this gives us any privilege 
to do good works on purpose that they may be seen : " We ought 
rather," according to St. Gregory's rule, " to publish the good we 
do in such manner, that the intention may be still unknown, that so 
our good actions may be a pattern for our neighbors, and the inten- 
tion we have of pleasing none but God, may make us always de- 
sire secrecy ;" Lib. 29. Moral, c. 18. 

3. The second advantage reaped by this outward composure of 
the body, is the security of the inward man, and the preservation 
of devotion. For the union and tie that is between these two 
is so close, that what one has the other immediately partakes of, 
and so on the contrary. For this reason, if the spirit is in good 



THE sinner's guide. 331 

order, the body immediately is so too, and that naturally ; and 
]f, on the other side, the body is uneasy and irregular, the spirit 
grows irregular and uneasy. So that one of them is hke a glass 
to the other. For as you may see all you do in a glass that stands 
before you, so all that passes in either of these two is immediately 
represented in the other ; and this is the reason why an outward 
composure and modesty is so great an assistance to an inward ; 
and it would be a matter of wonder to find a recollected mind in a 
troubled and distracted body. On that account the wise man says, 
"He that runs too fast will fall" (Prov. xix. 2); giving us to 
understand by this, that those persons who fall from the gravity 
and steadiness that Christian discipline requires, are frequently 
subject to stumble, and cannot but often fall into a great many 
faihngs, as those who walk too fast make frequent trips. 

4. The third good effect of this virtue is, the maintaining a man '1 
in the authority and greatness that belongs to his person and ' 
employ, if he be a man in any dignity or considerable charge, as 
holy Job kept up his, who tells us himself, in one place, " That 
the light of his countenance," amidst all his several accidents, 

'' never fell to the ground ;" Job xxxix. 24. In another place 
he says, that his authority was so great, that young men, " when 
they saw him, hid themselves ; and that the old men rose up' to 
pay him respect ; that princes gave over speaking, and put their 
fingers upon their mouths," out of the reverence they had for him; 
Ibid. ver. 8, 9. The holy man backed this authority of his, which 
had not the least appearance of pride in it, with so much sweet- 
ness and mildness, that he says of himself, " That even when he 
sat like a king, with his army round him, he was the comforter of 
the afflicted ;" Ibid. ver. 24. 

5. You may observe from hence, that the want of this modesty 
and composure is not condemned by wise men for a great fault, 
so much as it is for a sign of levity ; because the immoderate 
looseness of the outward man is a proof of the lightness and 
unsettledness of the inward. And, therefore, the author of Ec- 
clesiasticus says, " A man's clothes, his way of laughing, and — % 
his gait, show us what he is ;" Eccl. xix. 26. Solomon affirms / 
the same in his Proverbs, where he says, " As men see their faces 
when they look into the water, so wise men discover plainly the 
hearts of others," by the exterior actions they observe in them ; 
Prov. xxvii. 19. 

6. These are the great benefits that the modesty we have 
spoken of bestows on such as endeavor to acquire it. For which 
reason I cannot think well of the too great liberty of some per- 
sons, who, to avoid being called hypocrites, laugh and talk, and 
give themselves over to a great many things, which deprive them 
of all these benefits. " For," as St. John Climachus says, " the 
monk is not to lay aside his fasts, for fear of vain-glory" (Grad. 



332 THE sinner's guide. 

14) ; so neither is it reasonable, that a man should want the fruit 
of this virtue, out of human respect and consideration ; for we are 
not any more to lay aside any virtue out of respect to others, than 
we are not to commit one vice for the overcoming of another. 

7. This is what belongs in general to the composing of the 
outward man, at all times, and in all places. But because it is 
to be observed more exactly at feasts and public entertainments, 
we shall show, in the following section, how this is to be done. 

§ II. Of the Virtue of Temperance. — 8. To proceed with 
what belongs to the government of the body ; that which serves 
particularly for this end, is the treating of it with rigor and 
severity, not caressing and making much of it. For this flesh of 
ours, if we pamper and indulge it, will soon corrupt and swell 
with the vicious pleasures it is allowed, whereas mortification and 
hard usage keep it steady and even in virtue, just as dead flesh 
is preserved by myrrh, which is very bitter to the taste, but 
swarms in a little time with worms, if this be not applied to it. 
It is, therefore, requisite, upon this consideration, that we should 
say something of abstinence, as being one of the chief virtues, 
upon which the acquisition of all the rest depends, though it is 
very hard to be attained, because of our natural aversion to it. 
And though what has been said against gluttony might suffice to 
discover the value of temperance, because the understanding of 
one contrary makes the other known ; yet for the better clearing 
of this point, it will be proper to speak of it separately, to 
show the use and practice of it, and what means are fittest for 
obtaining it. 

9. To begin, therefore, with that modesty and decency which 
ought to be observed at table ; we are instructed upon that matter 
by the Holy Ghost himself, in the book of Ecclesiasticus, in these 
words : " Use those things which are set before you like a tem- 
perate man, that you may not be hated by others for eating too 
much. Give over before every body else has done, for good 
order sake ; and if there should be a great many at table, be not 
you the first to hold your plate up, and do not call for drink 
before others." Eccl. xxxi. 19, 20. These are instructions very 
necessary for man, and worthy of the sovereign Lord, that ob- 
served so perfect an order and union in making of all things, and 
it is his pleasure we should do so too. 

10. St. Bernard teaches us the same . doctrine in these words : 
" When we eat," says he, " we ought to consider the manner, 
the time, the quantity and the quality. The manner is not to fix 
all our affections upon those things that are before us ; the time 
is to be the usual hour of our repasts ; the quahty is to be satisfied 
with that which others eat, and not to seek after dainties, unless 
in case of necessity." Epist. ad Fratres de Monte Dei. This is 
the rule the saint prescribes in few words. 



THE sinner's guide. 333 

11. St. Gregory, in his Morals, speaks much to the same effect, 
thus : " It belongs to abstinence not to anticipate the ordinary time 
of meals, as Jonathan did when he ate the honeycomb ; it is its 
duty not to long for such things'as are most palatable and dainty, 
as the children of Israel did in the desert, when they wished for 
the fleshpots of Egypt ; it is for it not to desire that every thing 
should be nicely dressed, to eat like the Sodomites to satiety ; nor 
too greedily like Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of len- 
tils ;" Lib. 1. Moral. 1 Reg. xiv. 27. Num.xii.16. 1 Reg.ii. Gen. 
xix. and xxv. Thus far St. Gregory, comprising much in a few 
words, and those backed by proper examples. 

12. But Hugh of St. Victor handles this subject more fully, 
who, in his Book of Monastical Disciphne, teaches us how to 
behave ourselves at meals in these words : " Two things," says 
he, "require to be moderated and regulated whilst we are at 
table ; the one is the meat, and the other he that eats. For he 
that eats should neither talk nor look too much about him, nor be 
guilty of any indecency in the comportment of his body ; so that 
he shall bridle his tongue, and not let it bolt out every thing that 
comes upwards ; he shall keep his eyes in from gazing about upon 
every object, and keep all his other members and senses in a due 
decorum and recollection. For it is the nature of some persons, 
as soon as ever they are set down to table, to discover their in- 
temperance and the unruhness of their appetite, by the disturb- 
ance of their minds, by a perpetual unsettledness and disorder of 
all their members, shaking their heads, tossing their arms, and 
stretching out their hands, as if nobody else was to eat any thing 
there but, themselves; and thus, by their looks and gestures, they 
expose their gluttony and intemperance ; though they are confined 
to one place, yet their eyes and hands seem to be every where, 
so that they call for wine, cut bread, and lay hold of the dishes 
all at the same time ; and, like a general that designs to besiege 
a town, they view every part, and then stand considering where 
they shall begin first, because if they could they would set upon 
all at once." Hugo de St. Vincent de instit. Novic. c. 18 and 19. 
He that eats must avoid all these indecencies in his person ; but, 
as to his meat, he is to observe what and how he eats, as has been 
said already. 

13. Though a man should always come to table with such dis- 
positions as these, yet the hungrier he is, the more particularly he 
ought to be prepared, especially when he finds his appetite raised 
by the delicacy of what he sees before him : for in such a case, 
the good disposition of the organs of the taste, and the excel- 
lency of the object itself, are stronger incentives to gluttony. It 
would be well then, to consider, that he is not to give ear to 
gluttony, which would make him believe he is hungry enough to 
eat the very plates and dishes. St. John Climachus has an ex- 



384 THE sinner's guide. 

cellent sentence to this end : " Gluttony," says he, " is a mere 
hypocrisy of the belly, which, even when it is too full, is still 
craving more ; and when it is just ready to burst, fancies it shall 
die for hunger ; but the cheat is soon discovered, for man is satis- 
fied with much less ;" Deg. 14. Par. 2. 

14. To put a stop, therefore, to this evil, let him reflect upon 
the advice of a heathen philosopher as often as he goes to table, 
which is, " That we have two guests to provide for, the body and 
the soul, each of them is to have its particular nourishment ; the 
body must have what is necessary, and the soul its proper food, 
observing modesty and temperance, which produce virtue, the 
proper sustenance of the soul." 

15. Another good remedy against intemperance is, to bring the 
advantages of temperance into the balance with the short continu- 
ance of the pleasure of gluttony, to convince man how unreasonable 
it is to forfeit such mighty advantages for so" beastly and short a 
pleasure. 

16. It is convenient, for the clearer understanding of this, to 
consider, that, of all the senses of the body, those of feeling and 
tasting are the meanest. Because there is no creature in the 
world, how imperfect soever, but has these two senses, though 
there are many that want the other three, seeing, hearing and 
smelling. If, therefore, these two senses are the meanest and the 
most brutal, it cannot but follow, that the pleasures and dehghts 
which proceed from them must be the meanest too, because 
there is no creature whatever but is capable of enjoying them: 
nor are they the vilest only, but the shortest ; for the pleasure 
they afford lasts no longer than whilst their object is materially 
joined with them ; so the pleasure of tasting is gone as soon as 
ever the meat is out of our mouths. If, then, the satisfaction we 
receive is so base and brutish, and so short and fleeting, how can 
any man debase himself so much, as to be prevailed upon by so 
poor a pleasure, to neglect so great and so advantageous a virtue 
as that of temperance? This alone ought to be suflicient to 
overcome this appetite ; but much more, if we should urge several 
other things, that oblige us to the same. Let, therefore the true 
servant of God put the baseness and short continuance of this 
pleasure into the scale, against the beauty of abstinence, the 
benefits it produces, the examples of the saints, the toils and 
labors of the martyrs, who have made their way to heaven through 
fire and water ; the remembrance of his past sins, the torments 
of hell, with those of purgatory, and he will find, upon balance, 
that every one of these things tells him it is necessary to take up 
the cross, to mortify the flesh, to subdue the sin of gluttony, and 
to satisfy God for the pleasure he has taken in sin, by the pains 
of penance. He that sits down to table with these dispositions, 
will find how easy it is to renounce all manner of delicacy and 
niceness. 



THE sinner's guide. 335 

17. But if there be occasion for all this caution in eating, how 
much more is requisite in drinking of wine ; because there is no- 
thing so prejudicial and so destructive to chastity as wine is, nor 
any thing this virtue is more afraid of, looking upon it as its mortal 
enemy ; since the apostle tells her, " There is luxury in wine" 
(Ephes. V. 18) ; and it is then particularly most dangerous, when 
the blood is boiling with the heat of youth. This it was made 
St. Jerome say, "That wine and youth are two incentives to lust;" 
Ad Eustoch. de Custodia Virginis. Why, then, will we throw oil 
into the fire? Why are we so mad as to lay more wood on, 
when the flame is too high already ? For wine, being of its own 
nature so hot, it sets all the humors and parts of the body on fire, 
but especially the heart, which is the place it goes directly to, and 
the seat and residence of all the passions, which are imme- 
diately set in a flame, and heightened by it. So that when a man 
has once warmed himself with wine, his joy, his love, his anger, 
his hatred, are greater than before, and all his other passions are 
raised much higher. It is, therefore, a plain case, that since one 
of the chief employs of the moral virtues is the subduing of the 
passions, and the keeping of them down, wine must have a quite 
contrary quality, inasmuch as it kindles and inflames what virtue is 
to put quite out. Let every man judge by this, how much he is 
obliged to moderation in the use of it. 

18. Besides all this, wine makes a man very lavish of his 
tongue ; it is the cause of excessive laughter, of quarrelling, of 
cheating, of wranglings, of revealing secrets, and of many such 
disorders; and all this, not only because the passions are then 
much stronger, but because reason itself is clouded and overcast 
by the fumes and vapors of wine. Add to this, the occasion a 
man takes of running into these excesses, by seeing others do 
the same. Now these reasons, put all together, cannot but occa- 
sion such extravagances. It is, therefore, a pretty saying of a 
philosopher, " That the vine bears three sorts of grapes ; the 
first for necessity, the next for dehght, and the other for madness ;'■' 
giving us by this to understand, that wine moderately taken, is to 
supply the necessities of nature ; that the least excess serves 
more for the exciting of pleasure, than for the relief of our 
necessities; but to drink without any moderation or bounds is 
to become downright mad. Therefore, a man in this condition 
ought to suspect every design he has, and every resolution he 
makes ; because, generally speaking, it is not his reason, but 
wine, that puts him upon them ; and what a bad counsellor wine 
is, every body knows. Nor is it less convenient, for the shun- 
ning of all these dangers, to avoid too much talk or disputes at 
table ; because a contention, that begins peaceably, very often 
ends in quarrelling, and a man in his cups often bolts out some- 
thing he would afterwards wish he had let alone. For, as Solo- 
mon says, " There is no secret where wine reigns ;" Prov. xxxi. 4. 



336 THE sinner's guide. 

i 19. And though any profusion of the tongue is blameable at 

this time, yet the worst of all is when men talk of nothing but the 
meats that are before them, when their discourse is in praise of the 
wine, the fruit, the fish, and every thing else that is brought to ta- 
ble : or when they are continually finding fault with what is served 
up, or talking of the different meats of such and such a country, 
and the excellent fish of such and such rivers. All this discourse 
is a strong argument of an intemperate mind, and of a man that 
would be always eating, not only with his mouth, but with his 
heart, his mind, his memory and his tongue. 

20. But above all things, we ought to be careful not to devour 
our neighbor's life and conversation, for there is nothing so dan- 
gerous : " Because," as St. Chrysostom writes, " this is not eating 
the flesh of beasts, but of men, which human nature abhors." It 
is written of St. Augustine, that being always afraid of this vice, 
which very few tables are free from, he had two verses written in 
his dining-room, which were these : — 

Quisquis amaf didis ahsentum rodere vitam 

Hanc mensam vetitam noverit esse sihi. — In Vita Aug. c. 22. 

21. It is also to be observed, that, as St. Jerome says, it is much 
better to eat a little every day, than to fast for several days, and 
then to eat to excess. " Rain (says he) does the earth a great 
deal of good, if it falls gently, in its proper season ; but great 
storms and tempests quite spoil it ;" S. Hier. Ep. 7. ad Lsec. de 
Inst. Filise. Consider, as often as you eat, that you do not live 
to be a slave to your belly, but that you are soon after either to 
read, study or employ yourself about some good work or other, 
which you render yourself wholly unfit for when you eat so much 
that it is a burthen to you. Let temperance, therefore, and 
necessity, not appetite, or the craving of an immoderate stomach, 
prescribe you how much you should eat; nor is pleasure to be 
regarded in this case. Not that I would advise you here to starve 
yourself, but not to do the business of pleasure under the pre- 
tence of necessity. For you have as much need of something 
to maintain and nourish your body as any other creature, but, at 
the same time, it is to be kept under by mortification, or otherwise 
it will turn on you. And, therefore, St. Bernard says, " A man 
should mortify his flesh, but not destroy it ; he must not let it grow 

^ proud, but humble it : he must make a slave of it, and not let it be 
mistress ;" Ep. ad Fratres de Monte Dei. 

This may suffice to show us, what belongs to this virtue. He 
that would inform himself better of the advantages of it, and 
how beneficial it is in all respects, not only to the soul, but to the 
body, that is, to health, life, honor and estate, may read a treatise 
I have composed on this subject, at the end of my book of Prayer 
and Meditation. 



THE sinner's guide. 337 

§ III. Of the Government of the Senses. — 22. After subduing 
and regulating the body, our next business is to reform the 
senses, over which the true servant of God must keep a strict 
hand, but particularly over the eyes, which are, as it were, the 
gates at which all vanities enter into our souls, and the windows 
of perdition, through which death itself' gets in. Those who are 
much given to prayer have great reason to set a strict guard on 
this sense, both for the security of their chastity, and for the 
keeping their hearts from distraction ; for without such care the 
ideas of things, which enter into our souls by this way, leave so 
many different forms and impressions behind them, that they can 
neither pray nor meditate without a thousand distractions and 
disturbances, nor think of any thing but what is just before them. 
For this reason, devout persons endeavor always to keep their 
eyes so steady, as that they think it not enough to turn them 
away from such things as may be hurtful, but they will not so 
much as look on any noble piece of building, any rich suit of 
hangings, or any thing of that nature, that they may keep the 
imagination more free and pure against the time of their converse 
with Almighty God ; because this is so nice and ticklish an exer- 
cise, that not only sins, but even the representation of the images 
and figure of things that are not at all bad in themselves, are a 
hinderance to it. 

23. You should be no less careful in the sense of hearing than 
in that of seeing ; because it is the gate at which many things 
get admittance into the soul, that disturb and defile it. Nor 
should we only shut out bad discourse, but all kinds of news and 
relations of what happens in the world, and every thing else tliat 
is beside our own business. Because they who do not watch 
the passage of the ear so narrowly, as not to entertain such things 
as these, will be sensible of them afterwards, when they should 
be more recollected, and thinking of something else. The images 
of those things, which they heard others talk of before, are 
represented to their imaginations, and work so powerfully on 
their mind, that they do not so much as think of God without a 
great deal of interruption. 

24. I need not say any thing of the sense of smelling ; for to be 
in love with perfumes and sweet scents, besides it favoring so 
much of luxury and sensuality, is a reproach to a man, because it 
is effeminate vice, and such as few but ill women delight in. 

25. As to taste, more might be said, but it has been spoken of 
above, when we treated of temperance. 

§ IV. Of the Government of the Tongue. — 26. There is a 
great deal to be said concerning the tongue; for the wise man 
tells us, " That it has the power of life and death ;" Prov. xvii. 2. 
By these words he gives us to understand, that all the happiness 
and misery of a man depends on the good or bad raanage- 
43 2E 



338 THE sinner's guide. 

ment of this member. St. James looks on it as a thing of very 
great moment, when he said, " That as great ships are governed 
by a Kttle helm, and headstrong horses kept in with a small bridle, 
so he that looks very narrowly to his tongue shall be able to 
govern and rule all the actions of his life ;" Ja. iii. It is ne- 
cessary, then, for the w^ell governing of this part, as often as we 
speak, to remember those four things, what, how, when, and to 
what end we speak. 

27. First, then, as to what we speak, or the matter of our 
discourse, it is requisite we take the advice of the apostle : " Let 
not any evil words come out of your mouths, but only such as 
are good and fit to edify those that hear them ;" Ephes. iv. 29. 
And in another place, explaining more at large what he means by 
evil words, he says, " Let not any immodest discourse, or foolish 
talk, or scurrilous jesting, w^hich is not the purpose, be so much 
as named amongst you ;" Ephes. v, 3. 4. So that as skilful 
sailors have all the shelves that may endanger their ships 
marked down in their charts, to avoid striking on them, so it is 
his business that serves God to observe all kinds of bad words, 
that he may, by this means, be out of all danger of using them. 
Nor should a man be less careful in keeping of a secret he is 
intrusted with ; nay, he is to look on it as a rock altogether as 
dangerous as the former, to discover any business he has been 
intrusted with. 

28. As to how we are to speak, or the manner, we are to take 
care not to speak either too bashfully or profusely, not too hastily 
nor too formally, but with gravity, sweetness, simplicity and care. 
It also belongs to this method of speaking, not to be obstinate 
or positive ; because very often this disturbs the peace of con- 
science, destroys charity, and makes us lose our patience and 
our friends. It is the part of a generous and noble spirit, not 
to suffer itself to be overcome in such contentions as these, and 
of prudent men to follow the counsel of the wise man, who 
says, "You should behave yourself in several things, like one 
that knows nothing, that listens with silence, and asks of them 
that are knowing ;" Eccl. xxxii. 12. 

29. Besides observing the manner, we must be careful to 
speak in due time, which is the third condition. For, as the 
wise man says, " A wise saying out of a fool's mouth will not 
be taken notice of, because he does not bring it in due time;" 
Eccl. XX. 21. . 

30. In the last place, it is convenient we consider, for what 
end and what intention it is we speak, because some do it only 
to be looked on as wise men, others to be thought witty and 
well discoursed ; in the first, it is no better than hypocrisy and 
deceit ; in the latter, it is folly and vanity. We should, there- 
fore, take care, not only that what we say be good, but that the 



THE sinner's guide. 339 

end of our speaking be so too ; by aiming at nothing else in our 
discourse but God's honor, and the good of our neighbor. 

31. Besides it is proper to observe the company; for young 
men ought not to talk before their elders, the ignorant before the 
learned, laymen before priests and rehgious persons; nor ought 
any thing to be said where it may be taken ill, or where it may 
look hke presumption. In all these cases, it is convenient and 
commendable to be silent. 

32. He that speaks is to observe all these rules, that he may not 
err. And because all persons cannot judge of all these condi- 
tions, the best remedy is to be silent ; that so, attending to what 
others say, they may comply with all these duties. It was on this 
account the wise man said, " Even a fool shall pass for a wise 
man, if he holds liis tongue ; and for a man of understanding, if he 
will but keep his lips close ;" Prov. xvii. 28. 

§ V. Of the Mortification of the Passions. — 33. Having thus 
regulated the body, and all its senses, the next thing we have to 
do, which is the main business, is to regulate the soul ; with all 
its faculties. The first thing we are to begin with is the sensi- 
tive appetite, which contains all our natural affections and inclina- 
tions, as love, hatred, joy, sadness, desire, fear, hope, anger, and 
the like. 

34. This appetite is the meanest part of the soul ; and con- 
sequently, that which makes us like the beasts, which are governed 
by these appetites and natural propensities : this it is that debases 
and brings us nearer to the earth, and removes us the further from 
heaven. It is the very source of all the evils in the world, and the 
cause of our ruin : because, as St. Bernard says, " Do but take 
away self-will (that is, the desire of this appetite), and there will 
be no such thing as hell;" Serm. 3. de Resur. S. Tho. 2. 2. 9. 77. 
P. 4. 

This is, as it were, the magazine of sin, whence it is supplied 
with arms and ammunition to do us hurt. It is another Eve, that 
is the weakest part of our soul, and most inchned to sin ; by 
whose means the old serpent tempts our Adam, that is, the supe- 
rior part, the seat and residence of the understanding and will, to 
cast an eye on the forbidden tree. Here we may more plainly dis- 
cover the force of original sin, for here he has bestowed the malig- 
nity of its poison ; here are the battles, overthrows, victories and 
crowns ; that is, here are the overthrows of the weak, the victories 
of the strong, and the crowns of the conquerors : it is here, in con- 
clusion, that virtue is trained up and exercised ; since the chief 
business of the moral virtues is the taming and governing of these 
fierce and cruel beasts. 

35. This is the vine we are to be always pruning; this the 
garden we must be always cultivating ; and these the weeds we are 
to pluck up by the roots, to plant all sorts of virtues in place of 
them. 



340 THE sinner's guide. 

36. So that, according to this, the main ^business of the true 
servants of God is, to be always in this garden, hoeing up weeds ; 
or, to make use of another comparison, to sit like him that 
drives a chariot, with the reins of his passion in his hand, to loose 
or check them, not according to their own will, but as reason 
directs. 

37. This is the chief employment of the children of God, who 
follow none but the motions of the Holy Ghost, and will not per- 
mit themselves to be led away by the inclinations and desires 
of flesh and blood. It is this distinguishes spiritual from carnal 
men ; for whilst these, like beasts, are hurried away by their pas- 
sions, those, like true rational creatures, are led on by the Holy 
Ghost, and observe the directions of reason : this is the mortifica- 
tion and the myrrh so much commended in holy writ : this is the 
death and the grave the apostle so often invites us to ; it is the 
cross and self-denial the gospel preaches to us ; it is the doing of 
judgment and justice so often repeated in the Psalms and the pro- 
phets. And, therefore, it is convenient, that all our labors, all our 
strength, all our prayers, and all our employs, should be particu- 
larly directed this w^ay. 

38. To this purpose it is requisite that every man be well ac- 
quainted with his own natural bent and inclination, and keep the 
strictest guard where he sees the greatest danger. And though 
we are always to war against our appetites, yet we are more par- 
ticularly to make our efforts against the desires of honors, pleasures 
and temporal goods, because these are the three chief fountains and 
roots of all that is evil. 

39. We must also take care not to be conceited, always de- 
siring to have our will, and please our appetites, a vice very apt 
to bring us into much disturbance and trouble, and very familiar 
among great persons, and such as have always been used to have 
their pleasure observed in all things. The best way, then, to 
break ourselves of it will be, by frequently forming what we find 
ourselves least inclined to, and denying our own will, though it 
should desire nothing but what is lawful and allowable ; that we 
may, by this means, the more easily and more boldly refuse it 
what it should not have. Such trials and exercises as these are as 
necessary for instructing us in the ready and dexterous use of our 
spiritual arms, as well as of the corporal ; nay, they are of much 
more requisite, as a victory over ourselves and over the devil is 
greater than a victory over every thing besides. We should ac- 
custom ourselves to mean and low employs, and not trouble our 
heads with what the world shall say of us, because all that it can 
either give or take from us is very inconsiderable to him that has 
God for his treasure and his inheritance. 

§ VI. Of the Reformation of the Will. — 40. There is nothing 
helps so much to the acquiring of this mortiiication as the gov- 
erning and adorning of the superior will which is nothing but 



THE sinner's guide. 341 

the rational appetite, and which we are to adorn with these three 
holy dispositions, humility of heart, poverty of spirit, and a holy 
hatred of ourselves. For these three things make the business 
of mortification the easier. " Humility (as St. Bernard defines 
it) is the contempt of a man's self, arising from a true and deep 
knowledge of his own failings ;" S. Bern. Lib. de Grad. humilit. 
c. 2. The main business of this virtue is td cut down all the 
branches of pride, with all desires of honor, and to place itself 
in the lowest station below all other creatures, believing that any 
other who had received from God the same helps to live well as 
he has done, would have made better use of them, and been 
more thankful. Nor is it sufficient that a man have this know- 
ledge and contempt within himself, but he must endeavor exte- 
riorly to treat himself in the most plain and humble manner that 
he possibly can, according to his condition, taking no notice of 
what the world thinks or says to the contrary. To this purpose 
it is convenient that all things belonging to us have a tincture of 
poverty and humility, and that w^e subject ourselves, not only to 
our betters and equals, but even to our inferiors, for the love of 
God. 

41. The second condition required is poverty of spirit, which 
is a voluntary contempt of worldly things, and a satisfaction in 
the condition God has placed us in, be it ever so poor. This 
virtue at one stroke cuts down concupiscence, the root of all 
evils, and gives a man such a solid peace and happiness, that 
Seneca was not afraid to say, " He that has shut the door on the 
desire of concupiscence may dispute his happiness wdth Jupiter 
himself;" to signify, that since the happiness of man consists 
in fulfilling his heart's desires, he that has once quieted and 
calmed them has attained the height of happiness, or at least is 
very near it. 

42. The third condition is a holy hatred of ourselves. Our 
Saviour, speaking of that virtue, says, " He that loves his life shall 
lose it, and he that hates his life in this world preserves it for life 
everlasting ;" John xii. 25. This is not to be understood of an 
evil hatred, such as men have when they are reduced to a very 
miserable and desperate state, but of that aversion which the 
saints had for their own flesh, as being the cause of many evils, 
and the occasion of neglecting many good things ; and for this 
reason they dealt with it according to the rules and prescriptions 
of reason, not according to its own inclinations and desires. Now, 
reason frequently commands us to keep it low, to use it very 
hardly, and to make it a slave to the spirit, which is to make such 
use of it as is most reasonable : otherwise we must expect that 
what the wise man says will happen : "He that makes much of 
his servant when he is young, will afterwards find him rebellious 
and stubborn ;" Pror. xxix. 21. To prevent this he advises us, 

2E2 



342 THE sinner's guide. 

in another place, to deal with it as we would do with a wild 
beast, to keep it always in, to put fetters on it, and employ it 
continually, for fear it should grow idle, and by that means 
become proud and malicious. Now, this holy hatred is of singular 
use as to the business of mortification, that is, as to the mortify- 
ing and retrenching all our evil desires, though ever so painful 
and troublesome to us. For how will it otherwise be possible to 
cut to the quick, to fetch blood, and to strike deep where we 
have so much love ? For the arm of mortification borrows its 
strength, not from the love of God, but from a holy hatred of 
man's self ; and these give it the heart, not of a tender but of a 
hardy surgeon, to cut off from the other members whatever is 
corrupted and putrified, and this without any kind of mercy or 
pity. Much more might be said of these three virtues of humility, 
poverty of spirit and a holy self-hatred, as likewise of the mortify- 
ing of those several passions we have already spoken of in the 
spiritual life ; but having treated of them elsewhere, especially in 
the Memorial of a Christian Life, more at large, we will say no 
more of them in this place. 

-^ VII. Of the, Government of the Imagination. — 43. Besides 
these two faculties that belong to the appetite, there are two more 
that belong to knowledge, the imagination and the understanding, 
which answer the two former, that each of these two appetites 
may have such a suitable guide and knowledge. The imagination, 
then, the meanest of the two, is, of all the faculties of the soul, 
that which has been the most weakened by sin, and left the least 
subject to reason. This is the cause of its quitting our service, 
like a runagate slave, without our leave, and of its rambling all 
the world over before we miss it. It is also a faculty that is apt 
to busy itself with every thing that comes in its w^ay, like greedy 
dogs that smell to and turn over every thing they meet with, 
snapping and biting at whatever they see, and wall soon return to 
it again, though you drive them away with a cudgel. It is, more- 
over, a faculty that loves its liberty, and is very unconfined, 
always running up and down from mountain to mountain, like a 
wild beast, and cannot endure to be fettered or confined, or to be 
subject to its own master. 

44. Besides these ill qualities it has of its own, some persons 
make it much worse through their neglect, by their treating and 
pampering it -like a child, and leaving it entirely to its own will, 
without any restraint or contradiction. So that, when they would 
fix it to the consideration of heavenly things, it will not obey, 
because of the bad habit it has got. We should, therefore, since 
we are acquainted with the qualities of this wild beast, keep it as 
short as we can ; we should, therefore, tie it up to the manger, 
that is, restrain it to the consideration of such things only as are 
good or necessary, and enjoin it to perpetual silence, as to every 



THE sinner's guide. 343 

thing else ; so that we are to confine it to such thoughts as are 
good and holy, and to keep it shut up from all that are not so, as 
we have tied up the tongue from all kinds of words, that are not 
either good or necessary. 

45. To this purpose, it is requisite we use all the care and 
caution imaginable, in examining thoroughly whatsoever presents 
itself to our thoughts, to see whether it is to be entertained or 
not ; that, if it is, we may receive it as a friend ; if not, we are 
to look on it as an enemy. Those who are negligent in this point, 
very often admit of such things into their minds, as not only de- 
stroy devotion and the fervor of charity, but even charity itself, 
which is the very life of the soul ; 2 Kings iv. 5, 6. Isboseth had 
his head cut off by two thieves, who entered the house whilst the 
portress, that winnowed the corn, was asleep at the door of his 
anti-chamber. Thus it happens with us, whensoever we suffer 
prudence to fall asleep, whose office it is to separate the chaff 
from the corn, that is, the good thoughts from the bad, for then 
bad desires come into the soul, which very often take its hfe 
away. 

46. Nor is this dihgence good only for the preserving of this 
life of the soul, but for the obtaining of silence and recollection 
during the time of prayer ; because, as the imagination, when it 
rambles and flies abroad, will not permit us to pray in quiet, so, 
on the contrary, when it is restrained and accustomed to good 
thoughts, it is no hard matter to make it continue in them without 
being uneasy and troublesome. 

^ VIII. Of the Government of the Understanding. — 47. 
After these powers and faculties of the soul comes the under- 
standing, the noblest and greatest of them all, which, besides 
many other virtues, is to be adorned with that which excels them 
all, that is, prudence and discretion. This virtue is, in the spirit- 
ual Hfe, what the eyes are in the body, the pilot in a vessel, the 
king in a kingdom, or the coachman on the box; for it is his 
business to have the reins always in his hands, and to turn the 
horses which way he would have them go. The spiritual life is, 
without this virtue, quite blind and helpless, and full of nothing 
but confusion and disorder. And, therefore, the glorious St. 
Anthony, in a conference he had with several other holy monks, 
in which they discoursed on the excellence of the different virtues, 
gave the first place to this, as the mistress of all the rest ; Cas- 
sian, 2. Collet, de Descret. c. 2. It belongs, then, to all those who 
love virtue, to keep this virtue always in perfect view, that they 
may by this means make a greater advance in every other. 

48. This virtue is not limited to any one particular duty, but 
extends itself to all employs and exercises ; because it is not a 
particular but a general virtue, that is engaged in the exercises 
and practices of all the other \artues, ordering and prescribing 



344 THE sinner's guide. 

what is most requisite to be done in each of them. We will con- 
sider it, therefore, under this general acceptation, and speak here 
of some actions that belong to it as such. In the first place, then, 
it is the duty of prudence (faith and charity being presupposed) 
to direct all our actions, so as that they refer to God, as to their 
last end. It is by it that we may make a nice scrutiny into the inten- 
tion with which we perform all our actions, that we may see whether 
what we aim at be God or ourselves. For it is the nature of self-love, 
according to a certain devout author, to be very subtle, and to seek 
all things, even in those that are the most pious and holy; Imit. 
Chr. lib. 3. c. 39. 

49. It is a point of prudence to know how to behave ourselves 
towards our neighbors, so as to benefit and not offend them by our 
conversation. In order to this, it is convenient to observe men's 
humors and dispositions, and to feel how every one's pulse beats, 
that we may accordingly carry ourselves so as may be most to their 
advantage. 

50. Another piece of prudence is to know how to bear with 
other men's failings, and to take no notice of their weaknesses ; it 
is not good to search too deep into their wounds. It would be 
very well to consider that all human things are made up of an 
act and a power, that is, of perfection and imperfection : so that 
it is consequently impossible not to find many defects and failings 
in our lives, especially since the great fall nature received by sin. 
" Wherefore," as Aristotle says, " he is not a wise man, who 
looks for an equal certainty and demonstration in all things, be- 
cause some will bear an evident proof, and others will not : so it 
is not the part of a prudent person to desire that all things should 
be so complete and perfect, as to have nothing amiss in them ; 
for some things are capable of this perfection, and others are hot. 
And he that should endeavor by force to produce the contrary 
would, perhaps, do more mischief, with the means he would make 
use of to compass his design, than he could do good, though he 
compassed his end." 

51. It is prudence for a man to know himself, and to understand 
all that is within him, that is, all his failings, his desires, his evil 
inclinations, and, in fine, his ignorance and want of virtue. This 
keeps him from presuming vainly on himself, and tells him what 
sorts of enemies he is perpetually to oppose till he has driven them 
quite out of the land of promise, which is his soul ; and it teaches 
him how solicitous and careful he is to be in his business. 

52. It is prudence to know how to govern our tongues, accord- 
ing to the rules and circumstances already spoken of, and to know 
what we should say, and what we ought to let alone, and how to 
time both the one and the other. Because, according to Solomon, 
" there is a time of speaking, and a time of holding our peace ;" 
Eccl. iii. 7. And it is certain, that it is more commendable for a 



THE sinner's guide. 345 

prudent man to be silent than to talk at table, at public entertain- 
ments, and in such like places. 

53. It is prudence, again, not immediately to make confidants 
of all sorts of persons, nor to discover one's self to every body 
when well warmed with talking, or to give one's opinion of things 
to every body that asks it ; for, as the wise man says, " He is a 
fool that opens all his heart, but a wise man contains himself, and 
keeps things for another time ;" Prov. xxix. And he that trusts 
himself with one that he should not, shall be always in danger, and 
a slave to him he so rashly confides in. 

54. It is prudence to know how to prevent a danger, to be 
forearmed against what may happen, and be provided against all 
the accidents by prayer and meditation. This is what the author 
of Ecclesiasticus advises, when he says, " Apply the remedy 
before you are sick;" Eccl. xviii. 20. So that whensoever you go 
to any feast or entertainment, whensoever you have any concern 
with quarrelsome and turbulent men, whensoever you go to such 
places as may expose you to any danger, you should always fore- 
see what is most likely to happen, and accordingly prepare yourself 
against it. $ 

55. Another part of prudence is to know how to treat our body 
with discretion and moderation, so as neither to pamper and in- 
dulge, nor to ruin and destroy it, so as not to give it what is super- 
fluous, or to deny it what is necessary; to keep it under correction, 
but not so as to kill it ; and to manage it so as that it may not fail 
us through too much weakness, nor be strong enough to throw us ; 
S. Thom. 2. 2. q. 168. a. 2. 

56. It is also a great part of prudence to know how to behave 
ourselves with moderation in our employments, be they ever so 
good and virtuous ; so as not to be so intent upon them as never 
to give ourselves breath and respite. St. Frances, in his Rules, 
says, " that all things are to serve the spirit, and that we should 
not be so busy upon outward things as to prejudice the inward, 
nor apply ourselves so much to the love of our neighbors as to 
lose that we owe to God." For if the apostles themselves, who 
had the capacity and ability to do all things, disengaged themselves 
of lesser things, that they might not fail in those that were of 
greater moment, no man should presume so much of himself as to 
be persuaded he can do all things, since we generally see that he 
who undertakes too many things at once scarce ever succeeds in 
any of them ; Acts vi. 

57. It is no less a part of prudence to discover the designs of 
Our enemy, and disappoint his stratagems; not to believe every 
spirit, nor be led away by every shadow of good : 1 John. iv. 1. 
Because the devil very often transforms himself into an angel of 
light, and is always endeavoring to deceive good men under the 
pretence of virtue ; 2 Cor. xi. 14. And, therefore, there is no 

44 



346 THE sinner's guide. 

danger we should be more afraid of, than of that which comes 
under the appearance of good. It is certain that the devil chooses 
this way to attack those that are eagerly bent upon piety. 

58. To conclude, it is prudence to know how to fear and how 
to attack, when we get the better by giving ground, and when 
we lose by pressing forward; but above all, to know how to 
slight the opinions and judgments of the world, the cries of the 
multitude, and the noise of those that are perpetually barking 
without any reason, reflecting upon those words, "If I should 
please men, I should not be the servant of Jesus Christ ;" Gal. i, 
10. It is certain that the greatest folly a man can be guilty of, 
is to let himself be governed by such a many-headed beast as the 
multitude is, who never reflect upon any thing they say or do. 
It also concerns us not to give any scandal, to be afraid when 
there is no reason to fear, and not to be whistled about by every 
wind. It is the part of true prudence to keep a medium between 
all these extremes. 

§ IX. Of Prudence in our Business. — 59. There is no less need 
of prudence for succeeding in our imdertakings and for preventing 
of mistakes, not to be rectified without majy inconveniences, which 
often make us lose our peace of conscience, and put our whole life 
into confusion and disorder. The following instructions will serve 
us as remedies against this evil. 

60. The first is that of the wise man, who says, " Let your 
eyes be fixed upon those things that are just, and let your eye- 
lids consider the way that you are to go" (Prov. iv. 25) ; where 
he advises us not to undertake any thing rashly, but to do every 
thing with deliberation and good advice. Five things are neces- 
sary for this purpose ; the first is, to recommend our business to 
God ; the next is, to consider what we are going about, and to 
weigh with discretion, not only the substance of it, but every 
circumstance, because the least failing is enough to undo all again. 
For though an action should succeed well, and not have any ill 
circumstance in it, yet the doing of it out of season is sufficient to 
cast a blemish upon it. The third thing is, to take the advice of 
others along with us upon what is to be done, yet so as to con- 
sult with but few, and those choice and prudent persons. For 
though it is good to hear the opinions of others, in order to de- 
cide the matter, yet w^e are to follow^ but few in the determina- 
tion of it, for fear of failing in the execution. The fourth thing, 
and that very necessary, is, to take time enough for deliberation, 
and to consider for some days upon the advice that shall be given 
before we proceed any further. For as long conversation gives 
us a better experience of persons, so some days' consideration 
makes us see further into advice. A man very often seems to be 
of a different temper, after a httle acquaintance with him, than 
we imagine he was at first sight ; and just so it is with advice, 



THE sinner's guide. 347 

which, though at first sight it seemed to be advantageous, after a 
Httle deliberation proves to be quite otherwise. The fifth is, to be 
upon your guard against four great enemies to this virtue of pru- 
dence, which are precipitation, passion, selfishness and vanity. For 
precipitation will not consider what it has to do, passion is blind, 
selfishness will not admit of good advice, and vanity, wheresoever 
it gains admittance, spoils all. 

61. It belongs to this virtue to shun all extremes, and keep 
a mean for virtue and truth, to fly excess, and to be confined 
to just bounds and measures. So that we should neither ap- 
prove of nor reject all, we should neither affirm nor deny every 
thing, we should neither believe nor disbelieve all, we are not to 
condemn a great many for the faults of some few, nor, because 
some men are holy, must we think they are all so. We must in 
all. things stand to the decision of reason, and not suffer our- 
selves to be hurried away to extremes by the force of prejudice and 
passion. 

62. Another rule of prudence is, not to like or dislike things 
for being new or old, because there are several things of old 
standing that are very bad, and others, again, that are new, and 
yet very good. For antiquity is not sufficient to justify what is 
bad, nor is novelty to cry down what is good. We ought in all 
things to consider what they are worth in themselves, and not how 
long they have been in use and practice. It is no advantage at 
all to vice that it has been of long continuance, for this makes it 
the more incurable, and all that virtue loses by being new is, that 
it is not so well known. 

63. There is another rule of prudence, which is, not to be de- 
ceived by the appearance and outside of things, so as immediately 
to pass sentence upon them ; because, " all is not gold that glit- 
ters," nor is that always good which appears as such. We often 
find gall covered over with honey, and frequently run our hands 
amongst nettles whilst we are gathering flowers. Remember 
what Aristotle says, "That sometimes falsehood appears more 
like truth than truth itself;" Lib. de Anima. So vice may happen 
to look more like virtue than virtue itself. Above all, you must 
be thoroughly convinced that as gravity and the weighing of affairs 
is the companion of prudence, so easiness and levity are insepara- 
ble from folly. Therefore you must take care not to be over 
easy in these six things, in believing, in granting, in promising, in 
resolving, in conversing lightly with men, and in giving any way 
to anger. There is manifest danger in all these things, if a man 
is too easily prevailed upon to do them. For to be too forward in 
believing, is lightness of heart ; to be too easy in promising, is 
losing a man's liberty ; to grant without considering, is to do 
what a man may afterwards repent ; to be too hasty in resolving, 
is to put one's self in danger of committing an error, as David 



348 THE sinner's guide. 

did in Miphiboseth's affair (2 Kings ix.); an over freeness in 
conversation brings contempt ; and to give way to anger is a plain 
sign of folly, according to that of the vdse man : " He that is pa- 
tient is guided by much prudence, but an impatient man discovers 
his folly ;" Prov. xiv. 29. 

§ X. Of some Means necessary for the obtaining of this Virtue. 
— 64. Amongst other means that contribute toward the acquir- 
ing of this virtue, there is scarce any more successful than the 
experience of past failings, and of the proper methods tried 
by ourselves or others upon the like occasions, whence many 
rules of prudence may be taken. Therefore it is a common say- 
ing, " That the remembrance of what is past is the mistress and 
governess of prudence, and that the present day learns of that 
which is gone ;" because, as Solomon says, " What will be is what 
was, and what was is what will be again;" Eccl. i. 9. So that 
we may judge of the present by the past, and of the past by the 
present. 

65. But that which most advances the obtaining of this virtue 
is a true and profound humility ; as, on the contrary, the greatest 
hinderance it has is pride, because it is written, " Where humility 
is, there wisdom is ;" Prov. xiv. 2. Besides all, the Scripture 
tells us, " That God instructs the humble ; that he is the master 
of the little ones, and that he discovers his secrets to them ;" Ps. xi. 
Not that humility should submit to every one's opinion neither, 
or suffer itself to be carried away by every wind ; for then it would 
be no longer humility, but an unstableness and weakness of heart 
(1 Pet. V. James iv.), against which the wise man has advised us, 
saying, " Be not humble in your own wisdom" (Eccl. xiii. 11) ; 
to signify, that a man should be resolute in maintaining of those 
truths which he knows to be grounded on a just and universal bot- 
tom, and that he should not, as some weak persons are, be disturbed 
at the sight of a straw, nor suffer himself to be wrought on by all 
sorts of opinions. 

66. The last thing that is serviceable for the procuring of this 
virtue is humble and devout prayer ; because since it is one of 
the chief graces of the Holy Ghost, to enlighten the soul with know- 
ledge, wisdom, counsel and understanding, with the greater devotion 
and humility a man shall make his address to him, and the more he 
has of the heart of a scholar and child, the more plainly he shall be 
instructed, and obtain the greater fulness of these heavenly graces 
and favors. 

67. We have enlarged more than ordinarily on this virtue of 
prudence, because, being the mistress of all other virtues, it 
will be convenient to endeavor that that which guides the rest 
should not be blind itself, lest the whole body of virtues should 
be deprived of sight. But because all this serves for the justi- 
fying and governing of man in regard to himself, which is the 



THE sinner's guide. 349 

first duty of justice we laid down above, it is necessary we should 
speak now of the second, which teaches us how we are to behave 
ourselves towards our neighbor. 



CHAPTER III. 

Of Man^s Duty towards his Jfeighbor. 

1. The second point of justice is, for a man to behave himself 
as he ought to do towards his neighbor, and to show him the 
mercy and charity that God has commanded. None but he that 
has read the Holy Scriptures can believe how great a duty this is, 
and how earnestly recommended to us : read the Prophets, the 
Gospels, the sacred Epistles, and you will admire to see how 
strictly this is enjoined. God, in the prophet Isaias, makes a part 
of justice to depend on charity, and on using our neighbors well. 
So that, when the Jews made their complaints, saying, "Why have 
we fasted, O Lord, and thou hast taken no notice of us ? Why 
hast thou not regarded us when we humbled our souls?" his 
answer to them was, " Because on the day of your fast you follow 
your own wills, and not mine, and wreck your debtors : behold 
you fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wick- 
edness. Is not this the fast I have chosen ? to lose the bands 
of wickedness, to undo the heavy burden, to let the oppressed go 
free, and to break every yoke ? to distribute your bread to the 
hungry, and to receive strangers and the poor into your house ? 
When you see the naked, cover him ; and hide not yourself from 
your own flesh." Isa. Iviii. 3, 4, 6, 7. Then it is, that I \\'ill 
bestow such favors on you which the prophet reckons up through- 
out the remaining part of the chapter. See here wherein God 
places a great part of true justice, and how much it is his desire 
we should be charitable to our neighbors. 

2. What shall I say of St. Paul, who recommends no virtue 
more earnestly to us throughout all his epistles than this ? 1 Cor. 
xiii. What is there he does not say in commendation of charity ? 
How highly does he cry it up ? How particular is he in giving us 
all its excellences? How far does he carry it beyond all other 
virtues ? He tells us, " There is no better way to heaven than 
this" (Rom..xii. 20); and, not thinking this enough, he assures 
us, in another place, " That charity is the tie of perfection" (Colos. 
iii. 14) ; and elsewhere, " That it is the end of all the command- 
ments ;" and again, " That he who loves his neighbor, has fulfilled 
all the law ;" Rom. xii. 8. Could a man say more in praise of 
any virtue than the apostle has done of this ? And can any man, 
after this, who desires to know w^hat kind of works are most ac- 
ceptable to God, choose but admire and be enamored with this 

2F 



350 THE sinner's guide. 

virtue ? Can he any longer choose to refer or direct all his actions 
to the acquiring of it ? 

3. Besides this, we have St. John, the beloved disciple's ca- 
nonical epistle, wherein he repeats nothing so often, praises nothing 
so much, and recommends nothing so earnestly as he does this 
virtue. And the history of his Hfe says, " That as long as he 
lived, he made it the perpetual subject of his discourse, as well as 
the practice of his actions. And being asked one day why he 
repeated the same thing over and over again, he made answer, 
* Because, this duly complied with, was alone sufficient for salva- 
tion.' " St. Hierom. in cap. 5. Ep. Galat. 

§ I. Of the Duties of Charity. — 4. He, therefore, that sin- 
cerely desires to serve God perfectly, ought to understand, that 
one of the things which contribute most to this end is the ob- 
servance of this precept of love. Yet so, that this love is not to 
be dry and barren, but must have all those effects which proceed 
from a true love, for otherwise it will not deserve so much as the 
name of love ; if we will believe the same evangelist, when he 
says, "If any man is rich in this world, and should see his brother 
in want, and should shut up his bowels against him, how^ does 
the love of God dwell in him? My little children, let us not 
love in words and in expressions only, but in deed and in truth." 1 
John iii. 17. According to this, besides many other things, there 
are six particularly comprised under this name of love, to wit, to 
love, to advise, to assist, to bear with, to pardon, and to edify. 
There is so great a connection between these words and charity, 
that the more or the less a man has of those, he has the more or the 
less of this. For some say they love, but then this love goes no 
further ; others love their neighbors, and give them good advice 
and instruction, but vnW not put their hands into their pockets 
to relieve their necessities ; some will do all these three, yet have 
not patience enough to suffer an affront or injury, or to bear 
with the infirmities of others, not following the advice of the 
apostle, who says, " Take one another's burthens upon you, and by 
this means you will fulfil the law of Christ ;" Gal. vi. 2. Some 
persons will make no difficulty of putting up with an affront 
patiently, but cannot pardon it freely ; and though they have no 
malice in their hearts, yet they cannot give their neighbor so 
much as a good look. These, it is true, comply with the first 
condition, but ^t the same time neglect the second, and so are 
far enough from perfect charity. There are others, in fine, that 
will perform every one of these duties, who yet cannot edify their 
neighbors, either by their words or actions ; and yet this is one 
of the principal duties of charity. Let every man, then, examine 
himself on this, that he may see how short he comes of the per- 
fection of this virtue, or how near it reaches to it. For we may 
say, that he who loves is in the first degree of charity ; he that 



THE sinner's guide. 351 

loves and advises, in the second ; he that assists, in the third ; he 
that can bear an injury, in the fourth ; he that can forgive it, in 
the fifth ; and he that, besides all tliis, edifies his neighbor by his 
good life and conversation, which is the duty of perfect and apos- 
tolical man, is come to the perfection of it. 

5. These are the positive or affirmative acts, that are included 
in charity ; by which we see what we are to do for our neighbor. 
There are yet, besides these, others that are negative, which show 
us what we should not do ; such, for example, as not judging any 
body, not detracting, not meddling with another man's goods, 
his honor and his wife ; giving nobody scandal either by abusive 
or bad words, or by an uncivil and impertinent behaviour ; but, 
most of all, by bad advice or example. Let a man be careful in 
avoiding these things, and he will fulfil the duty of this divine 
command. 

6. If, for the more easy remembering of all this, you would 
have me give it to you in short, endeavor to carry yourself to- 
wards your neighbor with the tenderness of a mother, and you 
will not fail of complying perfectly with all I have said above. 
Consider how a kind and careful mother loves her child, how she 
advises him against dangers, how she assists him in his necessi- 
ties, how she deals with him in his failings, sometimes putting up 
with them with patience, other times correctuig him for them 
with justice, and, as occasion requires, passing them over, and 
winking at them with prudence : for charity, the queen and 
mother of all the virtues, makes use of these. Consider how glad 
she is at his prosperity, and how concerned for his adversity ; 
how she looks on his misfortune as her own, how zealous she is 
for his honor and interest, with what devotion she prays for him 
to Almighty God, and, in conclusion, how much more careful she 
is of him than of herself, and how hard she is to herself, that she 
may be the more tender and kind to him. If your love of your 
neighbor is such as this, you are arrived already to the height of 
this virtue: but, putting the case, that you cannot attain this 
pitch, you must at least aim at it in desire, and refer all the actions 
of your life to it, for it is certain that the higher you endeavor to 
climb, the further you will be from being low. 

7. But perhaps you would ask me. How can I have such an 
affection for a stranger? I answer, that you are not to look 
upon any man as such, but to esteem him as an image of God, 
as the work of his hands, as his child, and as a living member 
of Jesus Christ ; since St. Paul so often tells us, " That we are 
all of us members of Christ Jesus ; and that to sin against our 
neighbor is consequently the same as to sin against Christ, and 
to do good to the one is to do good to the other ;" 1 Cor. xii. 
28 ; Ephes. v. 20. So that you should not consider your neigh- 
bor as a man in general, or as such a man, but as Christ himself. 



352 THE sinner's guide. 

or as a living member of him ; and though he is not such as to 
the body, that matters not, since he is so as to the participation 
of the spirit, and the greatness of the reward ; our Saviour him- 
self assuring us that he will requite this favor as if it had been 
done to him. 

8. Consider also what we said above, in commendation of this 
virtue, and how much Jesus Christ himself recommends it to us ; 
so that, if you have any true desire of pleasing God, you may 
omit no care nor pains requisite for the procuring of a thing that 
is so acceptable to him. Consider also what a love relations have 
for one another, upon no other account but the communication 
of a little flesh and blood ; and blush that grace should not have 
as much power over you as nature, or the spiritual alliance as the 
carnal. If you should say, that this is a union and participation 
from the same root and the same blood, which is common to both 
parties, consider how much more noble those alliances are, which 
the apostle has put between the faithful ; since they have all one 
father and one mother, one Lord, one baptism, one faith, one 
hope, one nourishment, and one spirit that enlivens them; they 
have all one Father, which is God ; one mother, which is the 
church; one Lord, which is Jesus Christ; one faith, which is a 
supernatural light, of which we all partake, and which distin- 
guishes us from the rest of mankind; one hope, which is the 
same inheritance of glory, in which we shall all have but one 
heart and but one soul ; one baptism, by which w^e have been all 
adopted for the children of one and the same father, and conse- 
quently made brothers to one another ; one nourishment, which 
is the most adorable sacrament of the body of Christ, by which 
we are all united to and made one and the same thing with him ; 
just as of several grains of corn is made a loaf, and the same wine 
of a great many bunches of grapes. And besides all this, we 
partake of the same spirit, w^hich is the Holy Ghost, who resides 
in all the souls of the faithful, either by faith alone, or by grace 
and faith joined together, enlivening them and supporting them 
in this life. Now if the members of one - body, notwithstanding 
the difference of their employments and of their forms, have such 
a love for one another, because the same rational soul animates 
them all, how much more consonant to reason must it be, to have 
the faithful to do the same, as being all animated by this divine 
Spirit, who, the more noble he is, the greater powder must he have 
to unite those things in which he himself remains ? If, then, the 
bare union of flesh and blood be enough to make relations love 
one another so entirely, how much more force ought so many and 
such straight unions and alliances have over us ! 

9. But, above all, cast your eyes upon the singular and unpar- 
alleled love Jesus Christ had for us ; he loved us so passionately, 
so tenderly, so constantly, so far from any interest of his own, or 



THE sinner's guide. 353 

any desert of ours, that, encouraged by so great an example, and 
obliged by such a favor, you should dispose yourself to love your 
neighbor as much as possibly you can, after the same manner, that 
so you might faithfully comply with the precept, which he himself, 
upon his leaving the world, gave you, with such a particular cau- 
tion about the observing of it. His words are, " I give you a new 
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you ;" 
Jo. xiii. 34. He that would, besides what has been said, know 
how great a virtue that of alms-deeds, and of compassion for his 
neighbor is, and how excellent and meritorious, may read a Trea- 
tise of mine upon this subject, at the end of my Book of Prayer 
and Meditation. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Of Man's Duty to God, 

1. Having spoken of our obligations to our neighbors and 
ourselves, it is convenient we should speak now of what we owe 
to God ; it is the principal and most noble part of justice, and 
that to which the three theological virtues. Faith, Hope, and 
Charity, tend, which have God for their object, and hither looks 
that virtue which the divines call religion, whose object is the 
worship of God. 

2. The way, therefore, to perform all the duties belonging to 
every one of these virtues, is to have such a heart for Almighty 
God as a dutiful child has for his father ; so that as he that be- 
haves himself like a judge to himself, discharges the obligations 
that are due to himself, and as he that looks upon his neighbor 
with the tender heart of a mother, acquits himself of all that he 
owes to him ; so he that comes to God, with the heart of a son, 
will perform all his duties to him ; since one of the main duties of 
the spirit of Christ is to give our heart thus entirely to God. 

3. Consider, then, with yourself what kind of a heart it is that 
a son has for his father, what love he bears him, with what fear and 
reverence, with what obedience he serves him, with what zeal for 
his honor, and with how much disinterestedness ; with what confi- 
dence he runs to him in all his necessities, with what humility he 
receives his corrections, how submissively he bears his reprimands, 
and how willingly he embraces all that comes from him. Do but 
give God such a heart as this is, and you will perfectly discharge 
the part of justice. 

4. But to the making up of such a heart there are, in my 
opinion, nine virtues, necessarily required, which are, love, fear 
and reverence, confidence, zeal for God's honor, purity of inten- 
tion in the services you do him, prayer and recourse to him in 

45 2F2 



354 THE sinner's guide. 

all your necessities, gratitude for his favors, an entire submission 
and conformity to his will, humility and patience in all the afflic- 
tions and mortifications he shall send you. 

^ I. — 5. To begin, then, in order, the first and principal thing 
we are to do, is to love God as he himself commands we should ; 
that is, " with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our 
strength ;" Deut. vi. 5. So that there is nothing in man but 
what must in its way love and serve this Lord of all things. The 
understanding, by thinking of him ; the will, by loving him ; the 
passions, by always tending to what concerns the love of him ; the 
force of all our members and senses, by employing themselves in 
performing whatsoever this divine love shall prescribe. But be- 
cause we have treated of this matter expressly, in the Memorial of 
a Christian Life, I refer the reader thither, to inform himself more 
fully in this point. 

6. What we are to desire next, after this holy love, is fear, 
which is nothing but an effect of this love ; because the greater 
love we bear another, the more we are afraid, not only of losing 
but of offending him, as we see a dutiful son does with his father, 
and a loving wife with her husband ; for the more she loves him, 
the more careful she is that nothing be done to give him the least 
offence. By this fear innocence is secured, and, therefore, it con- 
cerns us very much to imprint it deeply in our souls. This is what 
David begged so earnestly, when he said, " Pierce my flesh, O 

. Lord, with the fear of thee, l3ecause I have been afraid of thy judg- 
ments ;" Ps. cxviii. 120. So that, according to this, the holy king did 
not think it enough to have the fear of God engraven in his soul ; 
he desired it should be stuck into his very flesh and bowels, that 
the lively sense he had of it might be like a nail driven into his 
heart, to put him continually in mind of not failing in any thing 
that might be grateful to him whom he had such a dread of. For 
this reason it is justly said, " The fear of the Lord expels sin" 
(Eccl. i. 27) ; because it is consonant both to nature and reason, 
when a man fears another much, to be very much afraid of what- 
soever may displease him. 

7. From this fear arises another, which is, to be afraid not 
only of bad actions, but even of good ones, if they happen not to 
be so pure, nor attended with such good circumstances as in rea- 
son they ought ; by which means those actions, which are good in 
themselves, become naught through our faults. And on this ac- 
count St. Gregory said, " That a good soul w^ould fear where 
there is no fault at all." Holy Job shows he was possessed with 
this fear, when he said, " I was afraid, O Lord, for all my actions, 
as knowing that thou wilt not spare a sinner ;" Job. ix. 82, 
Another effect of this fear is to be afraid whensoever we are assist- 
ing at the divine office in the church (above all, if the blessed 
sacrament is there), to talk or walk up and down, or to stare 



THE sinner's guide. 355 

and gaze about us, as many do. We are to behave ourselves there 
with an awful and reverential regard to the Supreme Majesty, be- 
fore whom we stand ; and which is in a more particular manner 
present in that place. These, and many more, are the ordinary 
effects of this holy fear. 

8. Should you ask me how this holy fear is formed in our souls, 
I answer, that the love of God is the chief root from which it 
springs. Next to which, servile fear is necessary in some manner 
for the acquiring of this other ; for it is the beginning of a fihal 
fear, and brings it into the soul, as the needle does the silk into 
the stuff we are sewing. Another thing besides this, that goes a 
great way towards the procuring and increasing of this fear, is 
the consideration of these four things : — the greatness of God's 
majesty, the depth of his judgments, the rigor of his justice, and 
the multitude of our sins ; to which we may add, the resistance 
we make against the divine inspirations. It will, therefore, become 
us, to employ our minds upon the consideration of these four things, 
because they assist us so much for obtaining and cherishing of this 
holy effect in our souls, whereof we have spoken more copiously in 
the former book. 

§ II. — 9. The third virtue necessary for this end is con- 
fidence ; that is to say, as a child, that has a wealthy and able 
father, assures himself, that his father will not fail to assist him 
and provide for him, if he should ever be reduced to necessity, or 
fall into any misfortune ; so man must in this respect have the 
heart of a child towards God ; and considering he has him for his 
Father, who has the power both of heaven and earth in his hands, 
he must put such trust in him, that whatsoever tribulations shall 
befall him, this heavenly Father of his will, out of his mercy, 
deliver him from them, if he does but either address himself to 
him with an humble confidence, or at least will turn them to his 
greater advantage and interest. For if a son have such con- 
fidence in his father, as to build all his security and quiet on it, 
with how much better assurance should man rely on him, who is 
more a father than all the fathers in the world, and richer than 
all mankind together I And if you say, that your having done no 
service, your want of merit, and the multitude of your sins dis- 
courage and deject you, your remedy in this case is, to consider 
not your own failings and unworthiness, but God himself and his 
eternal Son, our only Saviour and Mediator, that you may be 
strengthened again by him. So that when any one in crossing a 
rapid river, grows giddy with the violence of the stream, we call 
out to him, and bid him not to look down on the water, that is 
in such perpetual motion, but lift his eyes towards heaven, and 
so he will pass over with safety ; we are, after the same manner, to 
advise those that are weak in this respect not to reflect on them- 



356 THE sinner's guide. 

selves during that time, nor on their past sins. But then you 
will ask me, from whom you are to expect this strength and con- 
fidence. First, then, my answer is, that you must consider the 
infinite goodness and mercy of God, who alone gives a remedy to 
all the miseries in the world, and reflect on the truth of his word, 
by which he has promised his favor and assistance to all those 
who shall call on his holy name with humility, and put themselves 
under his protection. Consider also the innumerable benefits you 
have received from his charitable hand, and learn from his mercy, 
which you have already had such proofs of, to rely on the same 
for the future. But above all things, consider Jesus Christ, with 
all his labors and merits, which are the chief rights and titles 
we have for the begging any favor from God ; because we are sure, 
on the one side, that there are no merits which exceed or even 
come up to his ; and that, on the other side, they are the treasures 
of the church, given for the relief and supply of all her neces- 
sities. These are the chief encouragements and supports of our 
confidence ; and it was by these that the saints remained as strong 
and as immovable m what they hoped for, as the mountain of Sion ; 
Ps. cxxiv. 1. 

10. But it is much to be lamented, that having such motives to 
confide in, we should be so weak in this particular, as to be out of 
heart as soon as ever we but see the danger, even to run to Egypt 
for help, under the shelter of Pharao's chariots. So that you will 
find many persons that serve God, who fast and pray much, and 
give considerable alms, and are endowed with several other 
virtues ; yet there are but very few who have the confidence of 
the holy Susanna (Dan. xiii. 42), who, after they had condemned 
her to death, and as they were leading her to the place of exe- 
cution, continued still, as the Scripture observes, to put all her 
confidence in the Lord. All the Scripture may be applied to per- 
suade this virtue, but particularly the Psalms and the prophets ; 
for there is scarce any thing so often repeated in them, as a con- 
fidence in God, and the certainty of his assisting those that hope 
in him. 

§ III. — 11. Zeal for God's honor is the fourth virtue, that is, 
our main business should be, to look to the promoting and ad- 
vancing of God's honor, to the glorifying of his holy name, and to 
see that his will be performed both in heaven and on earth. And 
nothing should concern or touch us more to the life, than to behold 
men not only neglect his will, but act contrary to it. The saints 
had all of them this zeal ; and it was in all their names that 
these words were spoken : " The zeal of thy house, O Lord, has 
eaten me up ;" Ps. Ixviii. 9. Because they were so troubled on 
this account, that the grief of their souls weakened their bodies, 
corrupted their blood, and showed itself in all the outward man. 



THE sinner's guide. 357 

If we had but the same zeal they had, we should immediately 
have the glorious mark, which Ezechiel speaks of, the stamp on 
our foreheads ; by the means of which we should be free from all 
the corrections and scourges of the divine justice ; Ezech. ix. 4. 

12. The fifth virtue is purity of intention ; its office is to make 
us not seek ourselves, nor our own interest only, in whatsoever 
we do, but God's glory, and the observance of his pleasure, as- 
suring ourselves that the less we endeavor to promote our own 
interest with God, the greater advantages we shall reap, and so 
on the contrary. This is one of those things we are carefully to 
examine into, in the performance of all actions, and it is what 
becomes us to have a zealous concern for : we must be very cau- 
tious lest our eyes should fix upon any thing but God ; because 
self-love is, of its own nature, very subtile, and seeks itself and its 
own ease in all its actions. There are several persons very rich in 
good works, and yet, when they come to be weighed m the scale 
of God's justice, will find themselves very light, for want of this 
purity of intention ; which is the eye the gospel speaks of, and 
which, if it is light itself, makes the whole body so, or darkens it 
all over if it be dark ; Matt. vi. 22, 23. 

13. There are many, not only laymen, but even ecclesiastics, 
who, when they are promoted to any considerable dignities, and 
observe how virtue is always taken notice of, and honored in 
such kind of employs, use their utmost endeavors to make us be- 
come virtuous, and to live like pious and good men, clearing them- 
selves from all kind of defilement, and from every thing that may 
cast the least stain upon their honor. But their end of doing all 
this is only to keep up the reputation they have got, to continue 
in favor, that so they may be taken notice of for the exact dis- 
charge of their employs, and promoted to greater : so that these 
actions do not proceed from a Kvely sentiment of the love or fear 
of God ; nor is his glory, and the obedience that is due to him, 
the end of them ; all they regard is their own honor and interest. 
He, therefore, that acts after this manner, though he appear some- 
thing in the eyes of the world, is nothing better in the sight of 
God than the very smoke and shadow of justice : moral virtues 
are nothing before God, as considered in themselves, nor all the 
corporal macerations and austerities man can possibly use, not 
though he should sacrifice his own children ; all that God values is 
the spirit of love sent down from heaven, and whatsoever springs 
from this root. There was nothing in the temple but was either 
gold or gilt. So it is just there should be nothing in the living 
temples of our souls, that is not either charity or gilt with it. 
Wherefore it concerns him that serves God, to cast his eyes on 
what he designs to do, and not upon what he does ; because the 
meanest actions become noble, when the intention is so with 



358 THE sinner's guide. 

which they are done, as the greatest, on the contrary, degenerate 
into mean ones, when they have something that is mean for their 
object. Because God does not regard the action itself so much as 
the intention of doing it ; and this proceeds from love. 

14. This is in some degree to imitate that most noble and most 
generous love which the Son of God has shown us, who desires 
us in the gospel, " to love him as he loved us" (John xiii.) ; that 
is, freely and sincerely, and without mixture of interest. As 
amongst the several circumstances of this divine charity, this is the 
most to be admired in the Son of God, happy will that man be, 
who makes it his business in all his actions to imitate him. And 
whosoever shall do so, may assure himself, that he is very accept- 
able to God, as one that represents him in the height of virtue 
and in purity of intention ; for resemblance is generally the cause 
of love. Man ought, therefore, when he is doing any good, to turn 
away his eyes from all kind of human considerations, and fix them 
upon God. Let him never consent, that an action, which has God 
for its reward, should serve for a temporal end. For as it would 
be a great shame to see a noble and beautiful young princess, fit to 
match with a king, given away to a man of very mean extraction; 
so it is a much greater subject of tears to see virtue, which is 
worthy of God himself, employed in acquiring of worldly goods. 

15. But because it is no easy matter to obtain this purity of in- 
tention, it concerns a man very much to beg it of God earnestly 
in all his prayers, and particularly in that petition of the Lord^s 
Prayer, " Thy vdll be done on earth as it is in heaven." So that as 
the whole exercise of the heavenly choirs is the performing of 
God's will with a most pure intention only to please him, so should 
the inhabitant of the earth, as long as he lives here, imitate this 
custom of heaven as far as possibly he can : not that it is not good 
and just to aspire to the enjoyment of his kingdom, next to pleasing 
God, but because the less self-interest appears in any of our ac- 
tions, the more perfect it will be. 

§ IV. — 16. The sixth virtue is prayer; by means whereof, like 
children, we are to have recourse to our father when any thing 
troubles or afflicts us, that through it we may continually remem- 
ber our heavenly Father, walk in his presence, and often discourse 
with him ; because this is the practice and duty of good children 
towards their fathers. But having handled this virtue at large else- 
where, we will say no more of it here. 

17. The seventh virtue is thanksgiving ; whose post is to ex- 
cite us to gratitude for all God's favors, and to employ our tongues 
in perpetual acknowledgments of them. It is this virtue that 
makes us cry out wuth the royal prophet, " I will praise the Lord 
at all times ; his praise shall always be in my mouth ;" Ps. Ixxxiii. 
1. And in another place, " Let my mouth, O Lord, be filled with 



THE sinner's guide. 359 

praise, that I may sing thy glory all the day long ;" Ps. Ixx. 8. 
For if God is always giving us our life, if he is always preserv- 
ing us in the being he has given us, and continually pouring do-v^Ti 
his benefits on us, by the motions of the heavens, and by the ser- 
vices we perpetually receive from all creatures, what can we do 
less than be always praising him, w^ho is always preserving, main- 
taining and defending us, and besto^^dng on us a thousand other 
graces and favors ? Let us, then, make this our first and chief 
exercise ; and in order to it, let us, as St. Basil advises us, 
begin all prayers with this ; let us, morning, noon and night, nay, 
every hour of the day, never cease to thank God for all his mer- 
cies and benefits, as well general as particular ; for those of grace 
as well as for those of nature ; but, above all, for that benefit of 
benefits, for that grace of graces, his becoming man for us, his 
shedding his blood for our salvation, and for his being pleased to 
let us always enjoy his company by means of the most adorable 
sacrament of the altar. Let us, amongst so many benefits, reflect 
particularly on this last circumstance, that he who has humbled 
himself so low for us is the Lord of all creatures, and that all 
he has done for us has been the pure effect of his love and mercy, 
without the least tincture of advantage or self-interest. Much 
more might be said on this subject ; but having spoken of it in 
another place, where we treat of the divine benefits, this shall 
suffice at present. 

§ V. Of the four Degrees of Obedience. — 18. The eighth vir- 
tue that recommends us to this heavenly Father, is an entire 
obedience to every thing in general, that he shall command us ; 
and in this consists the perfection of all justice. There are in 
this virtue three degrees ; the first is to obey God's command- 
ments ; the second, to follow his counsel ; and the third, to 
hearken to his inspirations and calls. The observance of the com- 
mandments is necessary to salvation, the following of his counsel 
helps us much in the keeping of the commandments, without 
w^hich we frequently fall into danger ; for it is a great remedy to 
prevent being forsworn, not to swear even to the truth ; to pre- 
vent losing peace and charity, not to contend ; to be safe against 
coveting our neighbors' goods, not to possess any thing of our 
own ; and to be sure not to endeavor to do harm to those that 
hate us, to do them all the good we can. So that the following 
of the counsels is instead of an out-work to the precepts ; and, 
therefore, he that would arrive at the end, is not to think it enough 
to keep the one, unless he labors to the utmost of his ability, 
and as much as his state and condition will permit, to observe 
the others. For as a man, that is to get over a rapid river, vnll 
not venture to cross directly over, but will go up higher to take 
the tide along with him, that so he may do it with more security, 



360 THE sinner's guide. 

so he that serres God should not content himself with observing 
of no more than what is just enough to save him; he must take 
the thing a little higher, that in case he should not reach to what 
he proposes to himself, which would be the better, he may at least 
arrive at that indispensably requisite to salvation ; I mean, that 
which is sufficient. 

19. The third degree, we said, was a submission to the divine 
inspirations ; for faithful servants not only obey what their mas- 
ters command them by word of mouth, but observe the least sign 
they give of their pleasure. But because a man may be deceived 
in this point, by taking that for an inspiration from God which 
comes only from man, or perhaps from the devil, we must take 
St. John's advice along with us here, for our better security : 
"Do not give credit to every spirit, but examine whether it 
comes from God or not;" John iv. 1. And, therefore, besides 
what you meet with in the Holy 'Scriptures, and the writings of 
the saints, which are the standards we must bring these things 
to, you must follow this general rule : — That since there are two 
ways of serving God, the one of our own choice, the other of 
obligation, whensoever they both happen to meet together, be 
sure let that which is of obligation take place of the other, though 
it be ever so great and meritorious. And thus it is we are to 
understand that most excellent saying of Samuel, " Obedience is 
better than sacrifice" (1 Kings xv. 22) ; because God would have 
men observe his word first, and afterw^ards do him all the other 
services they can, still with respect to the obedience they owe to 
him. 

20. By necessary services we mean, first, the keeping of God's 
commandments, without which there is no salvation. Next, the 
observing of such persons' orders as are placed over you : "Be- 
cause he that resists them, resists God's disposal of things ;" Rom. 
xii. 2. In the third place, the observance of all those things that 
are annexed to each man's state and condition, as the obligations 
of a superior in his situation, of a religious or of a married man 
in theirs. Then the observance of such things, as, though they 
are not necessary in themselves, yet contribute very much to the 
observance of those that are so, because the necessity of the one 
makes the others in some manner necessary. As, for example, you 
have found for a long while, that when you take some time every 
day to retire a little, and enter into yourself to examine your con- 
science, and to treat with God about proper means for the reme- 
dying of what you find amiss there, you lead a more regular and 
orderly life, that you have a more absolute command over your- 
self and your passions, and are much more easily inclined to the 
embracing of all kinds of virtue ; you see, on the other side, that 
as soon as ever you neglect this holy exercise, you run immedi- 



THE sinner's guide. 361 

ately into a great many failings, and find yourself in danger of 
contracting your former vicious habits again ; this comes from the 
want of a sufficient stock of grace, and of being not grounded 
thoroughly in virtue : and for this reason, as a poor man, that has 
earned nothing all day, has nothing to eat at night, so you, as 
often as you want the assistance of this devotion, grows hungry 
and weak, and much more apt to commit lesser faults, which lead 
you by degrees into greater. In this case you must suppose, that 
God calls you to this exercise, since you find, by experience, that 
it is the means by which he generally assists you, and that with- 
out it you always fall back again into your former courses. What 
I say here is not to make you believe that this precept is of in- 
dispensable necessity, but only to show you how necessary and 
convenient a means this is, for your better complying with the 
obligations of your state. Besides, if you are nice and tender, 
if you are too much a friend to yourself, and cannot endure any 
thing that is hard and laborious, and yet perceive, that this love 
of your own ease is a hindrance to youi spiritual progress, inas- 
much as it is the cause of your omitting many good works, be- 
cause of the labor that is in them, and of your committing many 
bad ones, because they seem pleasant and easy ; it is plain, in 
such a case, that God would have you use all your force and 
strength, and accustom yourself to such exercises as are most 
difficult and painful to the macerating of your body, and the mor- 
tifying of all your senses and appetites ; because your own expe- 
rience teaches you of what concern and consequence this affair is. 
You may inquire after the same manner into all those other works, 
in the practice whereof you find most benefit, and receive the 
greatest prejudice by omitting them, and you will understand, by 
this means, which of them God requires you should do ; but with 
submission yet in this, and all other matters, to the advice and 
direction of those that are set over you. 

21. You may see by what has been said, that a man is not 
always to take hold of that which is best in itself, but of that 
which is best and most necessary for him. For there are many 
things most noble and perfect, which may not be the best for me, 
though they are the best in themselves, because I am neither able 
to perform them, nor does God call me to them. It, therefore, 
concerns every one to do just what he finds himself called to, to 
measure himself by his own strength and abilities, and make that 
which is most proper for him the object of his choice, without 
aiming at those things which are out of his reach ; it is the advice 
of the wise man, when he says, "Do not set your eyes upon 
riches, which you cannot enjoy, because they will take wing like 
an eagle, and fly into the air ;" Prov. xxxiii. 5. And as for those 
who follow not this counsel, the prophet reproves them very 
46 2G 



362 THE sinner's guide. 

severely, saying, " You have aspired to that which is greatest, and 
it has proved the least ; you have sown a great deal, and it has 
brought you but Httle ;" Agg. i. 9. 

22. This is the rule you are to follow between services of 
choice and those of obligation, but as to those that are only of 
choice, you may observe the following method: — Among these 
services, some are public and others private ; honor, interest and 
pleasure are the effects of the one, but not of the other. Your 
best way, therefore, not to err in this point, is to stand more upon 
your guard in those which are public, than in those which are 
not, and to be more suspicious the more interest and profit there 
is in the case. Because self-love is naturally very subtle and 
always seeking itself, even in exercises of the utmost piety and 
devotion. This it was gave a holy man frequent occasion to say, 
"Do you know where God is? He is where you are not." 
Giving us hereby to understand, that the less advantage and self- 
interest there was to be expected, the action was so much the more 
pure and divine, because a man then proposes nothing to him- 
self but the search of God. What I say here is not to oblige 
any man to stick so close to this rule as never to act contrary to 
it ; for, after all, it may and often does happen, that the other ex 
treme may be much more meritorious than this, and a man's 
obligations may weigh down all that I have said ; my only design 
is to advise persons against the deceit and malice of self-love, 
and not to give any credit to it, let it look ever so much like 
virtue. 

23. Perfect obedience includes it in these three degrees, which 
are, in all appearance, the same the apostle meant, when he said, 
" Be not imprudent, my brethren, but wise, that you may know 
what is the will of God, good, well pleasing and perfect ;" Ephes. 
v. 17 ; Rom. xii. 2. The apostle seems, in this sentence, to have 
comprehended these three degrees of obedience ; because the ob- 
serving of the precept is good, the following of the counsels is 
well pleasing, and the hearkening to the divine calls and inspira- 
tions is perfect. So that a man may be truly said to be come to 
the very perfection of obedience, when he has performed whatso- 
ever God has commanded him, whatsover he has advised, or what- 
sover he has inspired him to. 

24. Besides these three degrees, there is a fourth, which is a 
most perfect conformity to the will of God, in all he shall com- 
mand us ; by being equally disposed to receive honor or dis- 
honor, a good reputation or a bad, health or sickness, life or 
death ; by submitting ourselves, with humility, to all his decrees 
and orders; by preparing ourselves w4th an equal affection for 
chastisements and stripes, or for smiles and caresses, for favor or 
disgrace ; not looking on that which is given us, but on him that 



THE sinner's guide. 363 

gives it, and on the love with which he gives it. For a father has 
no less tenderness and affection for his child when he corrects and 
punishes him, than when he makes much of and caresses him. 

25. He that has obtained these four degrees of obedience, has 
acquired that resignation so much recommended by spiritual 
guides, and by which a man puts himself so entirely into the 
hands of God, that be becomes as pliant as a piece of wax in the 
hands of an artist. This virtue is called resignation ; because, as 
a clergyman that resigns up a benefice lays down and delivers it 
entirely into the hands of his bishop, for him to dispose of as he 
pleases, without any control or contradiction, so a perfect man 
delivers himself up into the hands of God, that he may be his 
own master no longer, nor live for himself ; that he may neither 
eat, sleep nor work for himself, but for the honor and glory of his 
Creator, by conforming in all things to his most holy pleasure and 
disposal, and by receiving from his hands, with the same heart of 
love, all the difficulties and contradictions he shall meet with ; 
by denying and renouncing himself and his own will for the 
doing of God's with all exactness, whose slave he acknowledges 
himself on a thousand accounts. David has given us an example 
in himself of this resignation, when he said, " I am become like a 
beast before thee, and am always wdth thee ;" Ps. Ixii. 23. Be- 
cause, as a beast neither goes where it pleases, nor rests w^here it 
pleases, nor does what it pleases, but obeys its keeper in all 
things, so he that serves God is to submit himself in all things to 
him. The prophet Isaias has taught the same lesson, in these 
words : " The Lord has opened my ear, and I do not contradict 
him, nor have I turned away from him, by refusing what he has 
commanded me to do, though it was ever so hard and painful :" 
Isa. i. 5. Ezekiel has instructed us in the same, by the figure of 
those mysterious animals of which he writes, " that, which way 
soever they perceived the impulse of the spirit, that way they 
went, nor did they turn back as they walked ;" Ezek. i. 12. The 
prophet by this shows us with what readiness and joy a man 
should do whatsoever he shall understand to be the will of God. 
But for the doing of this there is required, besides a ready will, a 
discreet understanding and spirit, to prevent our being deceived, 
and mistaking our own will for God's, and, therefore, for the most 
part, we ought to suspect every thing that is according to our own 
inclination, and look on that as most secure that is most opposite 
to it. 

26. This is the greatest sacrifice man can offer up to God, be- 
cause, in all other sacrifices, he can offer up nothing but his goods ; 
whereas, in this, he offers up himself, so that this sacrifice is as 
much above all others as man is above the goods he possesses. 
Here that saying of St. Augustine is verified, "that, though God 



364 THE sinner's guide. 

is the Lord of all things, yet it is not for every one to use these 
words of David, ' O Lord, I am thy servant' (Ps. cxv. 16) ; but 
for those only, v^ho, having quitted the possession of themselves, 
have given themselves wholly up to the service of this Lord, and 
are by this means become his ;" St. Aug. in Ps. 118. This is the 
best disposition a man can be in for the obtaining the perfection 
of a Christian hfe ; because God, out of his infinite goodness, be- 
ing always ready to enrich and improve man, when he does not on 
his side resist or put a stop to God's designs, but, on the contrary, 
readily and entirely obeys him, he may easily work him up to what 
he thinks fit, and make him, like another David, a man after his own 
heart ; 1 Kings xiii. 14, 

§ IV. Of Patience in Afflictions. — 27. The last virtue we pro- 
posed, at the beginning of this chapter, as very necessary for ac- 
quiring of this last degree of perfection, is patience in those afflic- 
tions which our tender Father often sends us, both as a trial and 
for matter of merit. This it is that Solomon invites us to, in his 
Proverbs, by these words : " My son, refuse not the correction 
of the Lord, nor be discouraged when thou art chastised by him. 
For whom the Lord loves he corrects, and takes a pleasure in 
them, as a father does in his children." Prov. iii. 11, 12. The 
apostle explains this text, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, where, 
advising them to patience, he says thus : " Endure correction 
with perseverance. God deals with you herein as with sons ; for 
what son is there that is not corrected by his father ? For if you 
want the chastisement which all God's children have received, you 
are bastards, and not sons. Our fathers according to the flesh have 
chastised us, and we have honored them ; shall we not, therefore, 
with much more reason obey the Father of spirits, to the end 
that we may live ?" Heb. xii. 7, 8, 9. 

28. These words show us that it is the duty of a father to cor- 
rect and punish his children ; and dutiful children will submit 
themselves with humility to the same, and look on it as a very 
great favor, and as a token of fatherly love and care : this, the only 
Son of the eternal Father has taught us by the same example, 
when, on St. Peter's endeavoring to rescue him from death, he said, 
" Shall I not drink the chalice which my Father has given me ?" 
John xviii. 11. As if he had said, If this chalice had been pre- 
sented me by any one else, you might have had some reason for 
being against my drinking it ; but since it comes from my Father's 
own hands, who knows how to assist those that are his children, 
and at the same time can and will do it, why shall I not take it as 
coming from him ? 

29. Yet there are some who, in time of prosperity, think they 
are subject to this Father, and have a perfect conformity to his 
will, but in time of adversity they presently faint, and make it 



THE sinner's guide. 365 

appear that their resignation and conformity were false, and that 
they were deceived in their submission, since they lost it when 
they had occasion to make use of it ; like cowards, who boast in 
time of peace, but in fight fling down their arms and quit the 
field. And since this life is so subject to continual troubles and 
combats, it will be well to arm such persons with spiritual weapons 
which they may make use of at such times. 

30. For this end you may, in the first place, consider that the 
troubles of this life are nothing, if compared with the greatness of 
that glory we may purchase by them. For the joy this eternal 
glory gives us is so charming that, putting the case we were to 
enjoy it but for one single hour, we should willingly undergo all 
the pains and torments we can possibly endure here, and despise 
all the pleasures this world is able to afford us for the obtaining 
of it. Because, as the apostle says, " Our tribulation here, which 
is so hght, and endures but for a moment, procures for us an 
inestimable weight of eternal glory in heaven ;" 1 Cor. iv. 7. 

31. Consider, again, how frequently we are puffed with pros- 
perity, whilst, on the contrary, the grief caused by adversity puri- 
fies our hearts : the first state makes a man proud and haughty, 
whereas the other humbles him, though he was ever so high be- 
fore: that teaches a man to forget himself; the ordinary effect 
of this is to put him in mind of God : that frequently makes us 
lose the merits of our best actions ; by this we often atone for the 
sins of several years, and secure ourselves against falling into them 
again for the future. 

32. If you languish under sickness, you are to persuade your- 
self that, very often, God, foreseeing what ill use we should make 
of health, clips, as it were, our wings, by the distemper he sends, 
and so puts us out of the power of committing any sin ; so that 
it is much more to our advantage to languish under sickness, than 
to enjoy health and go on in our crimes. It is much better, as 
our Saviour tells us, " to enter into life maimed or lame, than to 
.have both our feet, and be cast into everlasting fire ;" Matt, xviii. 
8. It is a plain case that our God, who is so merciful, takes no 
pleasure in tormenting us ; his delight is to heal our infirmities, 
by applying contrary remedies, that so we, who have got our 
sickness by the enjoyment of pleasures, may recover our health 
by suffering some pain ; and that having been thrown down by 
committing of such things as are unlawful, we may rise again by 
depriving ourselves of those that are lawful. Thus you see how 
God, by an effect of his infinite goodness, exercises his indigna- 
tion on us in this world, that we may happily avoid the effects of 
it in the next ; how he uses his severity here with mercy, that he 
may not " pour out his wrath upon us hereafter without it." For, 
as St. Jerome says, " God is most angry when he conceals his 

2G2 



366 THE sinner's guide. 

anger against sinners." So that, according to this, he that is not 
willing to receive the correction of children now, must be con- 
demned to the pains of devils hereafter. This gave St. Augus- 
tine a great deal of reason to cry out, " Burn me, O Lord, cut, 
and do not spare me in this life, that thou mayst spare me for 
all eternity in the next." By this you may perceive how care- 
ful the Creator of all things watches over you, by holding in the 
reins, and not letting you follow the track of your own evil incli- 
nations. When once a physician has given his patient over, he 
allows him to take whatever he has a mind for ; but for those 
whose condition is not so desperate, he prescribes to them their 
diet, and will allow them nothing that will do them any prejudice. 
So a father keeps his son short when he is given to debauchery or 
gaming, and yet leaves him his estate when he dies. God, who is 
the sovereign Physician of our souls, and the best of all fathers, 
takes the same course with us. 

33. Besides all this, consider what injuries and affronts our Sa- 
viour suffered from his own creatures. Consider how he was de- 
spised, scoffed at and buffeted by them ; with what patience he 
exposed his divine face to be spit upon by those villains, the 
instruments of the devils ; with what mildness he suffered them 
to pierce his head with thorns; how willingly he received the 
bitter potion they gave him to quench his thirst ; how silent he 
was whilst they hailed him in sport and mockery; with what 
vigor, in fine, and with what patience he ran to embrace death, 
that he might deliver us from it. Can you, then, who are nothing 
but a vile creature, at best but dust and ashes, think any thing 
hard that he shall be pleased to inflict upon you in punishment 
of your sins, when he himself has suffered so much for these same 
sins of yours, and would not go out of this life but with pains and 
torments, though he came into it, without the least spot of imper- 
fection ? " Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and 
so enter into his glory ?" Luke xxiv. 26. And all this to teach 
us, by his own practice, what the apostle has declared to us, 
" that no one is crowned without fighting lawfully ;" 2 Tim. ii. 5, 
So that it is much better to suffer our present afflictions with pa- 
tience, whilst we may make our advantage of them by using them 
as the means of obtaining pardon for our sins and of increasing 
our glory, than, by bearing them with impatience, make our trouble 
greater, and put ourselves out of all hopes of benefitting by them. 
For whether you will or will not undergo them, you must, if God 
thinks fit, for there is no resisting his will. 

34. To all these considerations I shall add one more, of great 
force and efficacy, which is that, for the preserving of this pa- 
tience, a man must be always fortified and prepared against all 
kinds of adversities and afflictions, which way soever they come. 



THE sinner's guide. 367 

For how can any one expect to be better treated by a world so 
full of corruption and vice, by a flesh so weak and frail, by the 
devils that are so envious, and by his fellow creatures that are so 
malicious ? All he is to look for from them are continual perse- 
cutions, and unexpected assaults and onsets. It is the part of a 
prudent man to be always in readiness against such encounters 
and accidents as these, as he would do if he were passing through 
an enemy's country, and in so doing he will find two extraordi- 
nary conveniences. The first is, he will undergo all his troubles 
the better, being thus forearmed ; because, as Seneca says, 
" A blow never falls half so heavy as it would do, when we see it 
coming at a distance." And Ecclesiasticus gives us the same 
advice, when he says, " Apply a remedy before you are sick ;" 
Eccl. xviii. 20. The other advantage is, that, as often as a man 
does so, he is sensible he offers a sacrifice to God much like that 
of the patriarch Abraham, which he was going to make of his son 
Isaac ; Gen. xxii. For whensoever a man considers with himself 
that he may meet with such or such troubles and contradictions, 
either from God or men, whensoever he prepares himself for 
receiving of them with humility and patience, resigning himself 
entirely into the hands of God, accepting of all things from what 
part soever they come, as if he himself had sent them, as David 
did when Simei affronted him, he cannot but be persuaded, that 
whilst he does this, he offers up a most acceptable service to God, 
and merits as much by his good will and readiness, though he 
does nothing at all, as if he had done all he was prepared to do ; 2 
Kings xvi. 

35. For this reason it concerns us to remember that this is one 
of the most essential obligations of a Christian. St. Peter assures 
us of it, when he says, " Be not afraid of their terror, neither be 
troubled, knowing that you are thereunto called ;" Pet. iii. 9, 14. 
Every Christian, then, should consider, that as long as he lives in 
the world he is like a rock in the sea, which is perpetually exposed 
to the violence of the waves, and yet still keeps its place, though 
they are always beating against it. I have been copious upon 
this matter, because a Christian's whole duty, according to what 
St. Bernard says, consists in these two things, " To do good, and 
to suffer injuries :" S. Bern. Serm. 1. Apost. Pet. et PauK. There 
is no doubt but it is easier to comply with the first than with the 
second, and, therefore, it is requisite we should give most caution 
where there is the greatest danger. 

36. But it is observable, by the bye, that in this virtue of 
patience holy writers tell us there are three degrees, each of 
which is more perfect than the other. The first of them is, the 
bearing of afflictions patiently ; the second is, the desiring of them 
for the love of Christ ; and the third, the taking a delight in them 
upon the same account. So that it is not enough for a man that 



368 THE sinner's guide. 

serves God to take up with the first degree only ; when he has 
attained that, he must aim at the second; and not stop there 
neither till he comes to the last. We have a very good example 
of the first degree in the patience of holy Job. The desire several 
of the martyrs had of suffering furnishes us with an example of 
the second; and the joy which the apostles had in being found 
worthy to suffer affronts for the name of Christ, is an evident 
proof of the last. This is the degree the apostle had arrived to, 
when he said in one place, " That he glories in his tribulations ;" 
and in another, " That he will rejoice in his tribulations, afHic- 
tions, stripes, &c. which he had suffered for Christ ;" Acts v. ; 
Rom. V. 3 ; 2 Cor. xi. 12. Speaking elsewhere of his imprison- 
ment, he desires the Philippians to share with him in the joy he 
has to see himself in chains for the name of Christ ; Phil. ii. And 
he tells us the same favor was granted to the faithful of Macedo- 
nia ; so that they had a great deal of comfort amidst the heavy 
afflictions they were oppressed with. This is the highest degree 
of patience, charity and perfection, a creature can possibly attain 
to, and which very few arrive at, and, therefore, God does not lay 
this obligation upon any one, by way of precept, any more than he 
does the former. 

37. From what has been said, we are not to imagine that we must 
rejoice at the deaths, misfortunes or afflictions of our neighbors ; 
much less at those of our friends or relations ; and least of all at 
those of the church ; because the same charity, which commands 
us to rejoice in one case, obhges us to be S9rry and compassionate 
in the other. For it is charity that knows how to rejoice with those 
that rejoice, and to weep with those that weep ; as we see the holy 
prophets did, who spent their whole lives in lamenting and bewail- 
ing the miseries of men, and the punishments they groaned under. 

38. Whosoever, therefore, to conclude, shall have obtained these 
nine qualities or virtues, shall have the heart of a child towards 
God, and cannot but have thoroughly complied with this last and 
principal obhgation of justice, which is, to give God whatsoever is 
due to him. 



THE sinner's guide. 369 

CHAPTER V. 

Of the, Obligation of particular States and Callings. 

1. After having spoken of the duties of all sorts of persons in 
general, it would be well to show now what is most proper for 
every one in particular, according to his condition and employ- 
ment. But because this would be too tedious, I shall content 
myself at present with a word or two, in short, to show how highly 
it concerns each particular person, over and above what I have 
said already, to have a regard to the laws and obligations of the 
state he is in. Now these laws are many and different, according 
to their different callings. For some are appointed to command, 
and it is the business of others to obey ; some are married, others 
are religious, others are masters of families, &c. Now, every one 
of these conditions has its particular obligations. 

2. As to those that have the charge of government, the apostle 
advises them to be " watchful in all things, to take pains, and to 
discharge their duties ;" 2 Tim. iv. 5. And Solomon gives the 
same advice, when he says, " My son, if you are bound for your 
friend, and have engaged yourself for another man, you are bound 
by your own words, and are taken by your speech. Do, there- 
fore, my son, what I say, and disengage yourself. Run, make 
haste, waken your friend, let not your eyes sleep, and give no rest 
to your eyelids ; save thyself as a doe from the hands of the hunter, 
and as a bird from the hands of the fowler." Prov. vi. 1 — 5. Do 
not wonder at the wise man's requiring so much solicitude in a 
matter of such concern as this. For it is usual for men to take a 
great deal of care in those things they are intrusted with, upon 
two accounts, either because of the value of them, or else because 
of the danger they are exposed to. Now both those reasons are 
so strong in the concern of our souls, that there is nothing can be 
of greater value, nor in more danger ; and, therefore, much care 
must be taken in looking after them. 

3. The business of a subject or inferior is to look upon his supe- 
rior, not as a man but as God himself, so that he must have the 
same respect for him as he has for God, and should do whatsoever 
he bids him with the same readiness he would do it, had God 
himself commanded it. For if the master, whose service I am 
in, should bid me obey his house-keeper, or his steward, who is it 
I obey, in obeying the steward, but the master himself? If God, 
therefore, commands me to obey my superior, it is not so much 
my superior that I obey, as God himself, when I do whatsoever 
is ordered me. As if St. Paul would have a servant submit to 
and respect his master, not as a man but as Jesus Christ, how 

47 



370 THE sinner's guide. 

much more reasonable is it for an inferior to obey his superior, 
when obedience is the tie of his obhgation ? Ephes. viii. 5. 

4. There are three degrees in this obedience : the first is to 
obey in action only, the second is to obey both in action and will, 
and the third in action, will and understanding. For some do 
what is commanded them, yet neither do they like what they do, 
nor do it with a good will. Others do it wdth a good will, but 
still disapprove of what they do ; others there are, in fine, who, 
*' captivating their understanding to the service of Christ" (2 Cor. 
X. 5), obey their superiors as they would do God himself, in action, 
word and understanding, doing whatsoever he orders them, with 
cheerfulness and readiness, with humility approving of it, without 
sitting as judges over those to whom they themselves are answera- 
ble. You must, therefore, make it your business to obey your 
superiors all these three different ways, remembering that our 
Saviour says, "He that hears you hears me, and he^hat despises 
you despises me ;" Luke x. 16. Never murmur or say any thing 
against them, that they may never have occasion to tell you, " It 
is not against us that you murmur, but against the Lord ;" Exod. 
xvi. 8. Despise them not, for fear God himself should say to them, 
" They have not despised you, but me, that I should not reign over 
them ;" 1 Kings viii. 7. Treat them with all kind of truth and 
sincerity, that no one may upbraid you, saying, " You have not 
lied to men, but to God" (Acts v. 4), and lest, like Ananias and 
Sapphira, you be punished with sudden death for your rashness. 

5. Let the married woman look to the government of her house, 
and take care of her family, please her husband, and do all that 
a wife should do ; when she has satisfied those obligations, let 
her spend the rest of her time in devotion as much as she pleases, 
but still let her remember, that the duties of her state call upon 
her first. 

6. Let those that are fathers of children frequently reflect upon 
the severe punishment that was inflicted upon Heli, for his neglect 
in chastising and instructing his sons ; 1 Kings iv. This omission 
of his, God punished not only with his own and his children's 
sudden death, but with the loss of the priesthood, which was 
removed for ever after from his family. Consider that the sins of 
the children are, in some manner, imputed to the fathers, and that 
the ruin of a son is very often the cause of his father's destruc- 
tion : nor does -he deserve the bare name of father, who, after 
having begotten his son for this world, does not also beget him 
for the next. Let him correct him, reprove him, advise him, keep 
him out of bad company, and seek good masters for him : let him 
train him up in virtue, and instruct him, like Tobias, from his very 
infancy to fear God (Tob. iv.) ; let him break him of his own will 
and inclinations ; and since, before his birth, he was his father 



THE sinner's guide. 371 

according to the flesh, he must, now he is born, be his father ac- 
cording to the spirit. For it is against reason, that a man should 
do no more of the duty of a father than birds and beasts do, whose 
only business is to feed and maintain their young ones. Man must 
behave himself in this matter like a man, nay, like a Christian, 
like a faithful servant of God. He is to bring his child up so as 
that he may be the child of God and an heir of heaven, not a slave 
to the devil and an inhabitant of hell. 

7. Masters of families, that have servants, should remember 
what St. Paul says : " If a man does not take care of those that 
are under him, and especially of those that are of his own family, 
he has denied his faith, and is worse than an infidel ;" 1 Tim. v. 8. 
They are to consider, that those of their family are like sheep of 
their flock, and that they are the shepherds and keepers, especially 
of those that are their servants. Let them not forget, that the 
time will come when they must give an account of them, when 
they shall be asked, " Where is the flock that was committed to 
your charge, and the noble herd that you had the care of?" It 
was properly called nohle, because of the price of its redemption, 
and the most sacred humanity of Christ, by which it has been 
ennobled ; since there is no slave so mean, that has not received 
both his liberty and nobility from the humanity and blood of 
Christ. It is, therefore, the duty of a good Christian to be par- 
ticularly watchful over those of his family, and to keep them from 
all kinds of open sins, as quarrelling, gaming, swearing, cursing, 
&c. ; but above all, from sins of impurity. He must, besides ail 
this, endeavor to instruct them in the principles of religion ; he 
must make them observe the commandments of the church, par- 
ticularly that of hearing mass upon Sundays and holidays; of 
fasting upon all the vigils and other appointed fasting days in the 
year, unless, as we have said already, there be some lawful excuse 
for their not complying with these precepts. 



CHAPTER VI. 

First Advice upon the Esteem we are to have of the different Vir- 
tues, for the better understanding the Rule of a good Life, 

1. As, at the beginning of this treatise, I set down some neces- 
sary precognita, by way of advance ; so it is convenient here, 
now we are drawing to a conclusion, to give some advice for the 
clearer understanding of all that is contained in it. First, there- 
fore, it is necessary, after having treated of several kinds of vir- 
tues, to show how much one virtue is more excellent than another, 



372 THE sinner's guide. 

that so we may know what value to put upon every one, and to 
esteem it according to its true worth. For as it is requisite, that 
a man who trades in jewels should know what rate they bear, 
that he may not be deceived in the value of them, and as it is 
convenient for the steward of a great man's house to know the 
merits of all in the family, that each person may be treated ac- 
cording to his deserts, (for otherwise there will be nothing but 
perpetual confusion and disorder), so he that trades in the jewels 
of virtue, and he that, like a faithful steward, is for giving every 
one what is his due, should be well acquainted with the value of 
them, that whensoever they are set together, he may know which 
to give the preference to, lest he should gather chaff and scatter 
the grain. 

2. You are, therefore^ to understand, that all those virtues 
we have hitherto treated of may be ranked into two classes ; for 
some of them are more spiritual and inward, and others more 
visible and outward. In the first class are contained the theolo- 
gical virtues, with all the others, which have God for their 
object ; but charity, as queen of the rest, has the first place. To 
these we may add several other very excellent virtues, and which 
are much like the former, as humility, chastity, mercy, patience, 
discretion, devotion, poverty of spirit, contempt of the world, a 
denymg of our own will, a love of the cross, and of Christ's 
mortifications, with many other such virtues, which we call virtue 
in this place, taking the word in the largest signification. We 
call them spiritual and inward virtues, because it is the spirit they 
chiefly reside in, though they extend themselves even to outward 
works, as appears particularly in charity and in the worship of 
God, which, notwithstanding their being inward virtues, work 
outwardly for the honor and glory of the same God. 

3. There are other more visible and outward virtues, as fast- 
ing, discipline, silence, retirement, pious reading, prayer, singing 
of psalms, pilgrimages, hearing of mass, assisting at sermons 
and at the divine office, with all the outward observances and 
ceremonies of Christian and religious life. For though these vir- 
tues are all of them in the soul, yet their effects appear more out- 
ward than those of other virtues do, which are often occult and 
invisible ; as to believe, to love, to hope, to contemplate, to be in- 
wardly humbled, to have sorrow for a man's sins, to judge dis- 
creetly, and the "like. 

4. There is no doubt, but that the first of these two kinds of 
virtues are much more excellent and necessary than the second. 
For as our Saviour said to the Samaritan woman, "Woman, 
believe me, the hour is come that those who are the true adorers 
shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father looks 
for such to adore him. God is a spirit ; and, therefore, they that 



THE sinner's guide. 373 

adore him must adore him in spirit and truth." John iv. 23. 
This is, in plain terms, no more than what little children repeat so 
often at school, in these two noted verses : — 

Si Deus est animus, nobis ut carmina dicunt, 
Hie tibi prcBcipue sit pura mente colendus. — Cato. 

If God, as poets say, a spirit be. 
He must in spirit be adored by thee. 

For this reason David, describing the beauty of the church, 
says, " that all her glory is within, her garments are of cloth of 
gold, and of several colors ;" Ps. xliv. 13. The apostle expresses 
the same thing to us, when he says, " Accustom yourself to piety, 
for bodily exercise is good but for a Httle, but piety is profitable 
for all things, and has a promise of the goods both of this life and 
of the next ;" 1 Tim. iv. 7, 8. By piety here we are to under- 
stand the worship of God, and charity towards our neighbor ; 
and by the exercise of the body, abstinence and other corporal 
austerities, according to St. Thomas upon this place. 

5. This is a truth which the heathen philosophers were not 
ignorant of; and Aristotle, though he has not written much con- 
cerning the gods, says, that if the gods take any notice of our 
concerns, as it is to be believed they do, it is very probable they 
are most pleased with that which is the best and comes the 
nearest to them ; which is man's spirit or understanding. For this 
reason they who take care to beautify and adorn their souls with 
the knowledge of this truth, and with the reformation of their 
desires and passions, must, without doubt, be most acceptable 
to God. Galen, the great physician, was of the same opinion ; 
for, in his book of the Composition and Structure of Man's Body, 
and the Use of its Parts, coming to a passage, which particularly 
demonstrated the singular wisdom and providence of God, the 
sovereign Artist, he was struck with admiration at so many won- 
ders, and forgetting, as it were, his physic, turned to divinity, 
and broke out into these expressions : " Let others offer up their 
hecatombs" (they were sacrifices used by the ancients of a hun- 
dred oxen) " to the gods : I will honor them by a profound 
acknowledgment of the greatness of their w^isdom, by which they 
have so wonderfully disposed of all things ; I will reverence them 
by confessing the greatness of their power, by which they have 
been able to execute their own pleasure ; I will worship them, 
by admiring the greatness of their love, which has refused the 
creatures nothing, since they have bestowed upon every one of 
them in particular, whatsoever was necessary, and left them 
nothing to desire further ;" L. 3. de Usu Partium. These are 
the words of a heathen philosopher ; and what, I pray, could a 
Christian have said beyond this ? especially after having read this 

2H 



374 THE sinner's guide. 

expression of the prophet : " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice ; 
and the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings ;" Osee vi. 
Change but the word hetacomhs into holocausts, and you will find 
the philosopher and the prophet agree upon this matter. 

6. But notwithstanding the excellence of these virtues, those 
of the second class are very useful (though not so noble as the 
former) for acquiring and preserving of those that are greater ; 
some of them are necessary, either because of the precept, or of 
the vow that goes along w^ith them. This is made out by reflect- 
ing on those virtues we have mentioned. For retirement and 
solitude put a man out of the way of seeing, hearing and talking 
of a thousand things that will endanger not only his peace and 
quiet of conscience, but his chastity and innocence. We are 
all sensible what a help silence is for preserving of devotion, and 
avoiding of those sins, which men fall into by talking ; and the 
wise man has told us, that, " where there is much talk, sin will 
not be wanting." As for fasting, besides its being an effect of 
the virtue of temperance, and a satisfactory and meritorious work, 
if it be done with charity, it enervates the body, it lifts up the 
spirit, it weakens our enemy, and disposes us for prayer, pious 
reading and contemplations ; it keeps us out of those excesses and 
debaucheries occasioned by eating and drinking, and preserves 
us from all those scurrilous jests and buffooneries, quarrels and 
riots, which generally follow merriments and revels. As to those 
other virtues of reading good books, hearing of sermons, praying, 
singing and assisting at the offices of the church, it is plain they 
are all acts of religion, incitements of devotion, and serve to en- 
lighten our understandings, and to make our wills more inflamed 
with the desire of spiritual things. 

Experience makes this point so clear that, had our adversaries 
considered it, they w^ould never have run into the contrary ex- 
tremes ; for we daily see, that in those monasteries where regu- 
lar discipline is more exact, and where the exterior observances 
are better complied with, there is always more virtue, more de- 
votion, more charity, more strength and vigor in the members of 
them, and the fear of God and Christianity is better encouraged 
and promoted. Whereas in those houses where these things are 
less regarded, and where the exterior discipline their rules oblige 
to is grown loose, conscience, good manners and a holy life 
follow the same course, and fall to ruin ; because where the oc- 
casions of sinning are more, there sins and disorders are more 
frequent. So that the observance of a religious state may be 
properly compared to a vine, which, if it be w^ell fenced and en- 
closed, is out of all danger of being spoiled, but otherwise its 
fruit will be exposed to every one that passes by. It is even so 
with a religious order that has once fallen from the 'rigor and 



THE sinner's guide. 375 

austerity of its rule. Then what clearer proof than this, which 
is ^grounded on daily experience, of the advantage and importance 
of these virtues? 

8. How is it possible for a man that proposes to himself the 
acquiring and preserving of this sovereign virtue of devotion, 
which capacitates and enables him for all other virtues, and is, 
as it were, an incentive and spur to all kind of good, ever to 
obtain his end, whilst he watches so carelessly over himself, 
especially when the virtue he aims at is so far above his strength 
as it is, and so pure and perfect ? For it is so nice, and, if I may 
be allowed the expression, so volatile, that a man can scarce look 
back but it is gone. An excess of laughter, a superfluous word, 
a greater meal than ordinary, a little passion, a small dispute, or 
any other distraction whatsoever ; the desire of seeing, hearing or 
thinking of things not to our purpose, though not bad, are enough 
to spoil the better part of our devotion. So that not only our 
sins, but unnecessary employs, and any thing that can divert us 
from thinking on God, draws us away from it. For as iron, to 
be changed into the substance of fire, must be ahvays in it, or at 
least but seldom out of it, for fear of returning to its natural cold- 
ness again ; so this noble Aartue depends so much upon man's 
being always united to God by an actual love and reflection, that 
if he but thinks of any thing else, he casts himself back again 
into his natural corruption, that is, into the old disposition he had 
at first. 

9. It concerns him, therefore, that has a mind to procure this 
virtue, and to keep it when he has it, to watch so carefully over 
himself, that is, over his eyes, his ears, his tongue, and his heart ; 
it concerns him to be so temperate in his meals, to be so regular in 
all his words and notions, to be so much a friend to silence and 
solitude, to make it so much his business to be present at the 
service of the church, and to do all those things which shall 
excite him to devotion, that he may, by means of this care and 
diligence, be able to secure to himself the possession of so great a 
treasure as this is. If he does not do this, let him look on it as 
most certain he shall never succeed in this point. 

10. All this may sufficiently convince us of the importance of 
these virtues, without lessening the value of the nobler. Whence 
we may gather the difference there is between them ; for these 
are, as it were, the end, those the means of attaining it ; these 
are like health, those like medicines proper for procuring of it; 
these are in a manner the spirit of religion, and those the body, 
which, though it is inferior to the spirit, is a chief part of the com- 
pound, and necessary because of its operations ; these are like the 
treasure, and those like the key that secures it ; these are, as it 
were, the fruit of the tree, and those the leaves that adorn the 



376 THE sinner's guide. 

tree and preserve the fruit. Though this comparison does not 
answer exactly, because the leaves of a tree are no part of the 
fruit, though they preserve it ; but these virtues secure justice so 
as, at the same time, to make up a part of it, since they are all of 
them virtuous actions, and worthy of grace and glory, if done w^ith 
perfect charity. 

11. This is the esteem you are to set upon the virtues we 
have here been discoursing of, which is what we proposed at the 
beginning of this chapter. This doctrine will secure us against 
two vicrous extremes, that is, two notorious errors there have 
been in the world, as to this affair : the first, an ancient one, of 
the Pharisees; the other is a late one, of the heretics of our 
times. For the Pharisees, like carnal and ambitious men, and 
brought up in the observance of the law, which as yet was carnal, 
m^de no account of true justice, which consists in spiritual virtues, 
as we may see throughout the whble course of the gospel ; so 
that, as the apostle says, " they had the appearance indeed of 
piety, but wanted the substance" (2 Tim. iii. 5) ; you might have 
taken them for good men by the outside, though they were full of 
abomination and filth within. But our present heretics, on the 
contrary, being sensible of this error, fo avoid one extreme ran 
into another, which was splitting upon Scylla to avoid Charybdis. 
But the true Catholic doctrine shuns both these extremes, and 
seeks virtue in the mean, taking care to give the inward virtues 
the first and best place, without suffering the outward to lose the 
rank that is due to them. It places some, as it were, in the rarik 
of the nobility, and others among the gentry and commonalty, 
which compose this commonwealth, that the value of every thing 
ipfiay be known, and each have as much as is its due. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Of four necessary Instructions that follow upon this Doctrine. 

1. From what has been said may be drawn four important in- 
structions for the spiritual life. The first is, that he who serves 
God as he ought- to do, is not to content himself with seeking after 
spiritual virtues only, though they are the most excellent, but must 
add the others to them ; and this as well for the preserving of the 
first, as for the arriving at the height and perfection of all justice. 
To this purpose he is to consider, that as a man consists not of 
either soul alone or of body alone, but of both together, because 
the soul alone, without the body, is not a complete man, and the 
body, without the soul, is nothing but a lump of earth ; true and 



THE sinner's guide. 377 

perfect Christianity is neither only interior nor only exterior, but 
both at once ; because there is no preserving the interior without 
something at least, if not a great deal, of the exterior, accord- 
ing to every one's state and condition, nor is it enough for the 
performing of perfect justice. And as to the exterior without the 
interior, it goes no farther towards making a virtuous man, than 
the body without the soul does to the making of a natural man. 
So that, as the body receives its whole life and being from the 
soul, so the exterior depends, after the same manner, upon the in- 
terior, and most of all upon charity, for all the esteem and value it 
has. 

2. He, therefore, that would be undeceived, must no more 
separate the corporal from the spiritual, in order to make a perfect 
Christian, than he is to divide the body from the soul, for the 
making a complete man. Let him take the body and soul to- 
gether, the treasure and the chest, the fence and the vine ; let him 
take all his supports and props along with it, for they are all to go 
together, or he will lose both ; for he will not be able to obtain the 
one part, and the other without it will not avail him. Let him 
consider, that since neither nature, nor art which copies after na- 
ture, produce any w^ork without giving it an outside and clothing, 
and without giving it a defence and stay, both for its preservation 
and beauty ; it is repugnant to reason to think that grace, which 
is a much more perfect form than the others are, and which ope- 
rates much better, should not do as much as they do. Let him 
reflect on the sentence, "He that fears God, despises nothing; 
and he that contemns little things, will fall by degrees into great 
ones ;" Eccl. vii. 19. Let him consider the danger he runs in not 
taking notice of small things, because it is the ready w^ay for him 
not to mind the greater. Let him but think on the flies that 
succeeded the gnats in the plagues of Egypt ; that this may teach 
him how the neglect of lesser things makes way for that of greater ; 
Exod. viii. For he who does not regard the stinging of gnats 
shall be soon troubled with flies, that will overrun him with filth 
and nastiness. 

§ I. The second Instruction, — 3. By this it wdll appear about 
what virtues we are to be most solicitous, and w^hich require less 
care. For as men will do more for a piece of gold than for a 
piece of silver, and more for an eye than for a finger, so it is 
convenient we should take most care to purchase and keep those 
virtues that are the most excellent. For if we are dihgent in 
that w^hich is of least moment, and careless in that which is of 
most, all our spiritual aflairs will be disorderly. It is, therefore, 
a great piece of prudence in superiors, in their chapters and 
public assemblies, to recommend to their religious the observance 
of silence, fasting, solitude, ceremonies, modesty and the choir ; 
48 2H2 



378 THE sinner's guide. 

and to be much more zealous in advising them to charity, humihty, 
prayer, devotion, meditation, the fear of God, the love of their 
neighbors, and the like. And this latter part is so much the 
more necessary than the other, by how much the inward failings 
are more private than the outward, and, therefore, the more dan- 
gerous. For as men are more apt to remedy the defects they 
see than those they do not see, it is a hazard they may thus come 
to make no account of the inward failings, because they are not 
seen, though they may take much notice of the outward, because 
they appear ; besides, the exterior virtues, as abstinence, watching, 
disciplines, corporal austerities and mortifications, are more visible 
to others, and, therefore, more familiar to, and more esteemed by 
them ; whilst hope, charity, humility, discretion, the fear of God, 
the contempt of the world, and the rest of the interior virtues, are 
less in credit with the world, because they appear less outwardly, 
though, at the same time, they are much more acceptable to God, 
than the others. Our Saviour himself gave us the reason of this 
difference of opinions, when he said, "You justify yourselves be- 
fore men, but God knows your hearts" (Luke xvi. 15) ; and the 
apostle tells us to the same purpose, " He is not a Jew that is a 
Jew outwardly, nor is that circumcision which appears outwardly in 
the flesh ; but he is a Jew, who is one inwardly ; and the circum- 
cision of the heart, which consists in the spirit, and not in the 
letter, is true circumcision, whose praise comes not from men, 
but from God" (Rom. ii. 28, 29) ; for men have not eyes to see 
this spiritual circumcision. Since, then, these outward things 
are so manifest, and so much in view, and the desire of honor 
and praise is one of the cunningest and most powerful passions a 
man has, there is more danger of being carried away by this pas- 
sion, to the consideration and pursuit of those virtues which are 
most in esteem amongst men, than of being wrought on to the 
desire of those that appear less honorable, because it is the spirit 
that calls us to the love of these ; but the spirit and flesh together 
invite us to search after those, and the flesh is eager and subtle in 
pursuing all its appetites. This being so, we have all the reason 
in the world to fear, that two such powerful passions as these 
will easily prevail against one, and force it to quit the field. This 
disorder may be remedied by the light of this doctrine, which 
always pleads for the juster side, and stands up for maintaining 
of its right, not^yithstanding all these obstructions, and is most 
zealous in recommending that to us, which we cannot but see to be 
of the greater importance. 

§ II. The third Instruction, — 4. Another thing to be learned 
hence is the obhgation we have of following the rule of God's 
commandments in the concurrence of two virtues, which cannot 
possibly be both embraced ; for this will happen sometimes, and 



THE sinner's guide. 379 

in such a case we must give the preference to the most worthy of 
the two, to avoid confusion and trouble. This is what St. Ber- 
nard teaches us, in his Book of Dispensation. ^' There are," 
says he, *^ a great many laws enacted, not because men could not 
have lived w^ithout them, but because they served much more 
for the obtaining and preserving of charity. Therefore, they are 
to remain in their force and vigor, without change, as long as 
they answer this end ; nor can they themselves, who have the 
power to do it, make any innovation in this kind, without giving 
offence. But if, at any time, they should prove destructive to 
charity, who can think it would not be consonant to justice, and 
most for the increase of charity too, to omit, defer, change for 
the better or abolish, with the consent of those persons who 
have the authority in their hands, such laws as were instituted 
for the maintaining of charity, when once they are perceived to be 
prejudicial to it ? For it would certainly be a point of injustice to 
observe those laws, which were made in the behalf of charity, if 
ever they happen to prove otherwise. It is requisite, therefore, 
that those who are in command should look on these things as 
unchangeable and irrevocable, as long as they are useful for the 
keeping up of this virtue, and no longer." Orat. de Prsecepto et 
Dispens. c. 4. These are St. Bernard's own words, who pro- 
duces two decrees, one of pope Gelasius, and the other of pope 
Leo, in proof of what he here asserts. 

§ III. The fourth Instruction. — 5. We may gather from what 
has been said, that there are two sorts of justice, a true and a 
false one. The true one is that which embraces the interior 
virtues, and with them the exterior, that are necessary for the 
keeping of them. The false one is that which lays hold of some 
of the exterior virtues, without meddling with the interior, that 
is, without the love of God, without fear, humility, devotion, 
and the like. The Pharisees were just as this comes to, and no 
more ; and, therefore, our Saviour says to them, " Wo unto you, 
hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, who pay the tithes of your 
mint, your aniseed and cummin, and have neglected the weightier 
matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith ;" Matt, xxiii. 
23. He upbraids them again soon after, with these words : " Wo 
unto you, hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, who make the out- 
side of your cups and dishes clean, but within you are full of ra- 
pine and uncleanliness ;" Ibid. ver. 25. And immediately again 
" Wo unto you, hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you are 
like unto painted sepulchres, which appear beautiful outward, but 
within are full of dead men's bones, and all sorts of filthiness ;" 
Ibid. ver. 27. 

6. Such justice as this is we find frequently condemned by God 
himself, in the writings of the prophets. In one of them he 



380 THE sinner's guide. 

says, " This people honor me with their lips, hut their heart 
is far from me ; and they fear me, because of the laws and insti- 
tutions of men ;" Isa. xxix. 14. And in another place he says, 
" Why do you offer me so many sacrifices ? I am quite tired with 
them. I have no pleasure in the burnt-offerings of rams, and in 
the fattening of beasts, in the blood of calves, of lambs and of 
goats. Offer me no more oblations, for it is but lost labor ; your 
incense is an abomination to me ; I will not bear with your new 
moons, and sabbaths, and solemn meetings ; your public assembhes 
are wicked ; they are troublesome to me ; I cannot abide them." 
Isa. i. 11, 13, 14. 

7. What ! does God find fault with what he himself so strictly 
commanded ; nay, even when they are acts of rehgion, which of 
all virtues is the noblest, since its business is to worship God with 
works of adoration and piety ? Certainly, it cannot be the virtue 
he condemns, but the men that content themselves with outward 
obligations, and neglect true justice and the fear of God. For 
he himself declares, immediately after, that it is nothing else that 
displeases him. " Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put 
away your evil thoughts out of my sight, and cease from doing of 
evil, and learn to do well ; and then, though your sins were as 
red as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; and though they 
were like purple, they shall be as white as wool ;" Ibid. ver. 16, 
17, 18. 

8. He expresses the same thing again with much more vehe- 
mence elsewhere : " He that sacrifices an ox to me is like him 
that kills a man ; he that sacrifices a sheep is like him that tears a 
dog in pieces ; he that makes an offering to me is like him that 
offers up swine's blood ; and he that offers me incense is Hke him 
that sacrifices to an idol ;" Isa. Ixvi. 3. What can be the mean- 
ing of this, O Lord ? what kind of prodigy is here ? W^hy are 
those things, which you yourself have commanded, so abominable 
to you ? He gives us the reason of it, when he says, " They have 
made choice of all these things in their ways, and their soul is de- 
lighted in their abominations ;" Ibid. You see here, then, what 
small account God makes of exterior things, when they are not 
grounded on interior. To give us a proof of this, he says, by 
another prophet, " Take away from me the noise of your songs ; 
for I will not hear the melody of your harps" (Amos v. 23.) ; and 
in another place -he says, expressing his displeasure in more lively 
terms, " I will fling the dung of your solemn feasts into your 
faces ;" Mai. iii. What need is there, after all this, of saying 
any more, to show how little all exterior things amount to, let 
them be ever so noble and great in themselves, if the love and fear 
of God, and a horror of sin, which are the foundations of justice, 
be wanting. 



THE sinner's guide. 391 

9. Should you ask me, what can be the reason of God's dis- 
liking these kinds of service, of his comparing sacrifice with man- 
slaughter, and incense with idolatry ; of his calling the singing 
of psalms a noise, and solemn feast and meeting aung ; I an- 
swer, because these things, for want of the foundations we have 
spoken of, besides their being of no worth or esteem, give occa- 
sion to many to be proud and haughty, to presume on themselves, 
and to contemn every body else, that does not do as they do ; 
and, what is worst of all, this false justice settles them in a false 
security in the way they are in, which is one of the greatest dan- 
gers they can fall into; because they are so satisfied vdth what 
they have, that they aim at nothing further. Do but consider the 
Pharisee's prayer in the gospel : "I thank you, O God, that I 
am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or as 
this publican is ; I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I 
possess ;" Luke xviii. 11, 12. You may easily discover in this 
prayer, the three dangerous rocks we have spoken of; you may 
plainly see his presumption, when he says, I am not like other 
men; his contempt of others, in these words, I am not as this 
publican; and his false security, in his thanldng God for the life 
he led, whilst he imagined all was safe, and that he had nothing 
to be afraid of. 

10. Hence springs a dangerous kind of hypocrisy, which these 
false just men run into. For the understanding of this, you are 
to know that there are two sorts of hypocrisy ; the one is base 
and palpable, and is of those who know they are wicked, and 
outwardly appear good, to deceive the world. The other sort is 
more nice and subtle, which makes a man even deceive himself as 
well as others, like the Pharisee, who really cheated himself, and 
not others only, under the cover of justice, by imagining himself 
to be a holy man, though at the same time he was a very great 
sinner. This kind of hypocrisy the wise man points at, in these 
words : " There is a way that seems just to man, but the end of 
it leads to death;" Prov. xiv. 12. And in another place, speak- 
ing of four kinds of evils there are in the world, he reckons this 
for one of them : " There is a generation that curses their father, 
and that does not bless their mother. There is a generation 
that think themselves clean, and yet is not cleansed from their 
filthiness. There is a generation that has a proud look, and that 
turn up their eyelids. There is a generation whose teeth are as 
swords, and who devour the poor from the earth with their jaws." 
Prov. XXX. 11, 12, 13, 14. The wise man looks on these four 
sorts of persons as the most infamous and dangerous in the world ; 
and amongst them he puts those that are hypocrites in regard of 
themselves, who fancy they are clean, when they are as far from 
being so as the Pharisee was. 



382 THE sinner's guide. 

11. This condition is so dangerous, that, to speak the truth, it 
is not half so bad for a man to be a sinner, and to know he is such, 
as it is to be just after this manner, and to Hve in a false secu- 
rity. Because, let a man be ever so sick, the knowing of his dis- 
temper is a fair way to his recovery; but when a man fancies 
himself to be well, though he is much out of order, there will be 
no persuading him to take any medicine to cure him. For this 
reason our Saviour told the Pharisees, " that publicans and har- 
lots should go before them into the kingdom of heaven ;" Matt. 
xxi. 31. The Greek translation, instead of "shall go before," 
reads "do go before," w^hich is a stronger proof of what we 
affirm. This is what we are told much more plainly by our Sa- 
viour himself, in those obscure but terrible words, in the Apoca- 
lypse : " I wish you were either cold or hot ; but because you are 
lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out 
of my mouth ;" Apoc. iii. 15, 16. How is it possible God should 
wish a man were cold ? And how is it possible that a man that is 
cold should be in a better condition than one that is lukewarm, 
since the latter is nearer being warm than the other ? The reason 
is this : — He that is hot is the man that has got the fire of charity, 
and with it all those virtues, both interior and exterior, that we 
have spoken of; the cold man is he who has neither the one sort 
nor the other, because he has no charity. And the lukewarm is 
he that has some of the exterior virtues, but wants the interior, 
or at least charity. Now our Saviour would have us know that 
this man's condition is more dangerous than his is that is quite 
cold, not because he has more sins than the other, but because his 
evil is much more incurable ; for the greater security he imagines 
himself to be in, the further he is from applying any remedies. So 
that this superficial and outside justice of his makes him believe 
he is something, whereas in reality he is nothing at all. We need 
but read what follows to know it is the genuine and literal sense 
of the text. For our Saviour, speaking more clearly to him 
whom he had called lukewarm before, says, " You shall say, that 
you are rich and wealthy, and want nothing ; and you know not 
that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and 
naked ;" Ibid. xvii. Is not this the Pharisee drawn to life, who 
said, " God, I thank you that I am not like other men?" Luke 
xvii. 11. This, without doubt, was he that thought himself rich 
in spiritual treasures, because he thanked God as if he was so ; 
and yet he was poor, naked and blind, because he was empty of 
all interior justice, full of pride, and so blind that he could not see 
his own failings. 

12. We have made it appear thus far that there are two sorts 
of justice, a true and a false one ; we have discovered the dan- 
gers of this, and showed the excellence and dignity of that. And 



THE sinner's guide. 383 

let no one think we have lost our time in treating of these things 
so largely ; for since the gospel itself, which of all sacred writ is 
of most authority, and which has been left us as the rule to 
square our lives by, condemns this kind of justice so often ; since 
the prophets, as we have proved, do the same, it would have 
been very ill done if we should have passed over this matter 
slightly, which the Holy Scriptures so often repeat and inculcate. 
If the dangers a man is exposed to lay as open to every one as 
rocks that appear above the water in the midst of the seas, there 
would be no great need of advising persons against them; but 
when they are quite hid from us, it is convenient we should have 
some instructions to know how to avoid them, as mariners have 
their charts to show them whereabouts those shelves lie that are 
quite under water, that they may steer their course so as not to run 
upon them. 

13. Let no man deceive himself saying, such precepts were 
very necessary in former times when this vice was so frequent, but 
that there is not so much need of them now-a-days. I am of opin- 
ion the world is as bad now as it was then, and that it has almost 
always been of the same condition, because, when men are the 
same, when human nature is the same, when there are the same 
inclinations, and the same original sin, which we have all of us 
been conceived in, and from whence all other sins draw their 
rise, there must needs be the same offences. For where there is 
so great a proportion between the causes of sin, it is impossible 
there should not be as great a one between the sins themselves. 
So that there are the same crimes now in such and such kind of 
persons as there were then ; the only difference is, the names are 
not the same ; just as Plautus or Terence's comedies are the 
same now they were a thousand years ago, though the players are 
changed. 

14. So that, as those ignorant and carnal people thought God 
was very much obliged to them for their sacrifices, for their fasts 
and solemnities, observed according to the letter only, not ac- 
cording to the spirit ; there are a great many Christians at present 
w^ho hear mass every Sunday, say the Office of our blessed Lady 
or the Rosary every day, fast every Saturday in honor of her, 
are always present at sermons, and assist at the office of the 
church ; and yet, after all, notwithstanding so many actions which 
are really good, they are as eager in their pursuit of honors, 
as fully bent upon satisfying their lusts, and as subject to anger, 
as other men are that never do any of these things. They 
forget the obligations of their states ; they are not at all 
concerned 'about the salvation of their servants and family ; 
they are full of hatred and malice, and will abate nothing of 
their haughtiness ; they never exercise the least degree of hu- 



384 THE sinner's guide. 

mility- or patience. Nay, some of them go so far, and that 
upon very trivial matters, that they will not so much as speak to 
their neighbor upon any account whatsoever. Others are very 
backward in paying servants their wages, and in discharging 
their debts. And if a man should happen to do or say any thing 
that touches their honor or interest, adieu then to all the virtues 
they had. You will meet with some that are very generous and 
profuse of their prayers ; but they will never put their hands into 
their pockets to give an alms to the poor. You may find others, 
that will not for all the world eat flesh upon Wednesdays ; but they 
will make no scruple of detracting from their neighbor, and will 
never stop at any kind of slander or scandal when a man's repu- 
tation is at a stake ; so that, whilst they are so scrupulously afraid 
of eating the flesh of beasts, they have no horror of preying upon 
that of man, which God has so strictly forbidden them. For there is 
scarce any thing that a Christian should be so much concerned for as 
the credit or honor of his neighbor ; and yet it is but w^hat few take 
any notice of, though there are many things that are not half so 
important, which they are much more solicitous about. 

15. That these and many other such failings are the common 
practice, not only of the worldly men, but even of those that are 
retired out of it, is a truth unquestionable. And, therefore, we 
thought it necessary, this mistake being so general, to undeceive 
such as are fallen into it, especially when those persons, whose 
particular business it is to take notice of it, neglect their duty en- 
tirely in this point. What I have said will, I hope, supply this 
defect, and serve as a direction to those that desire to keep in the 
right way. 

16. And that what we have said may be more profitable to the 
reader, and he may not grow worse upon the medicine, it is good 
to advise him, in the first place, to inquire into his own spiritual 
state and condition, that he may see what it is he is most in- 
clined to. For as there are some general instructions that 
serve for all sorts of persons, as those upon charity, humility, 
patience, obedience, and the like, there are others, agam, more 
particular, which are good for some, but not so for others. As, 
for example, a scrupulous person should have his conscience 
enlarged a little ; whereas his, on the contrary, that is too large 
already, is to be confined and straitened. A man that is subject 
to diffidence, and apt to be discouraged, must be put in mind 
of mercy ; whereas the presumptuous should be frightened with 
the remembrance of justice. The same rule is to be observed 
proportionably in other cases. This is no more than the author 
of Ecclesiasticus advises us to, when he says, " Talk to the 
unjust man of justice, of war to the coward, of gratitude to the 



THE sinner's guide. 385 

ungrateful, of piety to the wicked, and of labor to the idle ;" 
Eccl. xxxviii. 12. 

17. Since, according to this, there are two sorts of persons, 
the one that apply themselves wholly to interior virtues, and the 
other that concern themselves about none but the exterior, it 
would do well to recommend the exterior virtues to the first 
sort, and the interior to the second, that so every one may be 
brought to a due measure and proportion. We have endeavored 
all along here to treat every thing with such moderation, that 
nothing might want the place that is due to it ; w^e have spoken 
in commendation of greater things without any prejudice to the 
lesser, nor have we, in extolling these, lessened them ; and by this 
means we have avoided those two dangerous rocks, which we have 
advised others not to split upon, the one which they run upon who 
practise interior acts, and never mind the exterior, the other they 
dash against who are so bent upon exterior, as to have no concern 
at all for the interior, and, above all, the fear of God, and a hatred 
of sin. 

18. The main point of all this business is to groimd ourselves 
so in the fear of God as to tremble at the very name of sin. Hap- 
py is he that has this virtue deeply rooted in his soul ; he may 
build what he pleases upon this foundation ; but as for him, on 
the contrary, who is easily wrought upon by sin, let him have all 
the appearances that can be, he is to look upon himself as miser- 
able, blind and unhappy. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A second Advice upon the different Ways of Living there are in 

the Church. 

1. Our second advice is to prevent men passing their judg- 
ment upon one another, on account of the different ways of living. 
To this purpose, you must understand, that there being many vir- 
tues requisite to a Christian Hfe, some persons are more addicted 
to some of them, and others to others. For we see some practise 
those most which have God for their immediate object, and these 
persons apply themselves for the most part to a contemplative life ; 
others esteem those virtues best, which make them most serviceable 
to their neighbor, and those embrace an active life ; others, again, 
love those best which put a man most in mind of himself, and these 
virtues belong particularly to a monastical life. 

2. Again, all virtuous actions being so many means for the 

49 21 



386 THE sinner's guide. 

obtaining of grace, some men follow one way, and some another, 
for the acqmring of it ; so that some endeavor to obtain it by 
fasting, disciplines, and other corporal austerities ; some by alms 
and works of mercy ; some by continual prayer and meditation ; 
in this last means, the ways are as many as the methods of pray- 
ing and meditating are different. So that some make use of this 
method, and some of that, and as there are many things to be 
meditated upon, there are also many sorts of meditations. Now 
that sort is best for each particular person, which he finds most 
profitable, and which serves best to excite him to devotion. 

3. Virtuous persons are subject to a great mistake as to this 
point, which is, that they who have profited by any one of these 
means think there is no other way of arriving at God, but that 
which they have gone. They would fain teach all the world 
the same, and look upon those as out of the road, who do not 
go their way, because they imagine it is the only one to get to 
heaven. He who is much given to prayer thinks that, without 
it, it is impossible to be saved ; he that fasts much persuades him- 
self that nothing is to the purpose but fasting ; he that leads a con- 
templative life fancies every body else to run the hazard of his 
salvation ; nay, they carry it so far sometimes, as to have no kind 
of esteem for an active life. They, on the other side, that have 
made choice of an active life, and for want of having experienced 
what passes betwixt God and the soul in the most dehghtful repose 
of contemplation, when they see how far they have advanced by 
their active way of living, lessen as much as they can the contem- 
plative life, and think there is no perfection without a composition 
of both, as if all the world was to do what they do. A man that 
makes choice of mental prayer, thinks all other kind of prayer un- 
profitable ; and he that loves vocal prayer best, says, that since 
it is more laborious than the other, it must needs be more mer- 
itorious. 

4. So that every man cries up his own ware, as shopkeepers 
do, and this without being sensible of it ; with a hidden pride and 
ignorance, each of them commends himself, by extolling that which 
he has the greatest stock of. Thus virtues are under the same 
circumstances as sciences, of which every one praises that he pro- 
fesses, and decries all the rest. The orator says, there is no 
art in the world to be compared with rhetoric. The astronomer 
will tell you, there is no science like that which treats of the 
heavens and stars. The philosopher says the same of his science. 
He that gives himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures says 
much more, and with more reason. The linguist says almost 
as much as he, because his languages serve for the better under- 
standing of the Scripture. The school-divine must have the first 
place, or else he will not be satisfied. In fine, there is none of 



THE sinner's guide. 387 

them all without his weighty reasons, to make you believe his 
sciences better and more necessary than the rest. 

5. This, which appears so plainly in sciences, is to be found in 
virtues, though it does not lie so open ; for all the lovers of them 
desire to choose that which is best, and seek that which suits with 
their incHnations ; and therefore think, that what fits them best, 
is best for every body, and what does not agree with them is 
proper for nobody. 

6. Hence spring the judgments made on other men's lives, and 
the spiritual divisions and schisms among brethren ; one man fan- 
cying another is in the wrong, for not taking the same way he 
does. It was almost such an error the Corinthians lived in ; 2 
Cor. xii. They had received several different gifts from God, 
and every one looked upon his own as the best, and, therefore, they 
valued themselves above one another. Some preferring the gift 
of tongues, others that of prophecy, some, again, that of inter- 
preting the Scriptures, others the working of miracles, and so of 
the rest. The best remedy that can be given against this mistake 
is that which the apostle prescribes them in his epistle against 
that distemper. First, he makes all graces and gifts equal as to 
their origin, assuring them they are all streams that flow from 
the same spring, which is the Holy Ghost ; and that, as to this 
point, they are all of them alike, though they differ among them- 
selves ; the members of a king's body are all a king's members, 
and of the blood royal, though they are not the same in respect to 
one another. The apostle says to this purpose, " We have all 
been baptized in one spirit into one body ;" 1 Cor. xii. 13. So 
that we all thus far partake of the same honor and glory, as be- 
ing the members of the same head. For this reason the apostle 
adds, immediately after, '* If the foot should say. Because I am 
not the hand, I am not of the body ; is it not, therefore, of the 
body ? And if the ear should say. Because I am not the eye, I 
am not of the body ; is it not, therefore, of the body?" Ibid, 15, 
16. It is plain, then, that as to this we are all equal, because of 
the unity and fraternity that is in all, notwithstanding the diversity 
which is in us at the same time. 

7. The cause of which is partly nature and partly grace ; we 
say it arises from nature, because, though every spiritual being 
owes its beginning to grace, yet grace, like water received into 
several vessels, takes several shapes, agreeable to the nature and 
condition of every one. For some persons are naturally easy and 
quiet, and, therefore, more fit for a contemplative hfe ; others 
are more choleric and active, and, therefore, an active life is best 
for them ; others are more strong and healthful, and less in love 
with themselves, so that a laborious, penitential life agrees best 
with them. God's goodness displays itself in all these particulars 



388 THE sinner's guide. 

much to our admiration ; for he, designing to communicate him- 
self to all, has been pleased to propose several ways to us, for our 
partaking of this favor, according to the several conditions of men, 
so that he that cannot go one way may try another. 

8. The second cause of this variety is grace ; because the Holy 
Ghost, who is the Author of it, has thought fit to have this variety 
in those that belong to him, for the greater perfection and beauty 
of the church. For as several members and senses are required 
to the making of a man's body perfect and beautiful, so there 
must be a great many virtues and graces to make the church so 
too. For if the faithful were all alike in this respect, how could 
they be called a body? "If the whole body," says St. Paul, 
" should be eyes, where would the hearing be ? If it should be 
hearing, where would the smelling be ?" Ibid. 17. God has, for 
this reason, thought fit there should be several members in one 
body, that so multiplicity and unity meeting together, there might 
be proportion between several things in one ; and hence comes 
the perfection and beauty we see in the church. Thus we see 
there must be this same diversity of voices, yet with concord, that 
so it may be sweet and harmonious ; for if the voices were all of 
the same pitch, if they were all trebles, all bases or all tenors, 
how could they make music and harmony ? 

9. The same thing appears to our wonder, even in the works 
of nature, in which the sovereign Artist has intermixed so much 
variety, by giving every creature its particular qualities and per- 
fections, and has shown so much justice in the distributing of them, 
that though each particular creature has some kind of advantage 
or other upon all the rest, yet they do not envy one another, be- 
cause if any of them is outdone in some things, it excels in others. 
The peacock is beautiful to the eye, but not dehghtful to the ear ; 
the nightingale, on the other side, charms the ear, but does not 
please the eye ; the horse is good for the race and the camp, but 
not for the table ; the ox is good for the table and plough, and fit 
for nothing else ; fruit-trees produce what is good for eating, but 
are not so fit for building as those trees are which bear no fruit. 
Thus in all things together we find all things dispersed, but never 
all together in any one thing ; that by this means the beauty and 
variety of the universe may be preserved, and the species of things 
may continue, and they may all be linked to one another, by a 
mutual and necessary dependence. 

10. The same order and beauty that is in the works of nature, 
God has thought fit should be in those of grace ; and for this rea- 
son he has, by his Spirit, ordered such a variety of virtues and 
graces in his church, that all of them might make a most harmo- 
nious concord, a most perfect world, and a most beautiful body 
composed of different members. We may see the effects of 



THE sinner's guide. 389 

this variety in the different states of men in the church, where 
some give themselves up to a contemplative life, and others to an 
active ; some apply themselves to works of obedience, others 
to penance ; some to prayer, and others to singing ; some to 
study, that they may be profitable to others ; some to looking 
after the sick and visiting hospitals: some to relieve the poor 
and miserable ; some to one kind of good exercise, and some to 
another. 

11. The same variety is to be found in religious houses. 
Though they all take the road that leads to heaven, yet they do 
not go all the same way. Some take the way of poverty, others 
of penance ; some go by the exercises of a contemplative life, and 
others by those of an active ; some labor for the good of the 
public, whilst others retire as far from it as they can. Some have 
revenues by the rules of their institution, others love poverty bet- 
ter ; some run into the deserts, and others into cities and towns ; 
and all this out of the motives of religion and charity. 

12. We may observe this variety again, not only in the orders 
and monasteries, but in the particular members of the same, so 
that some are employed in singing in the choir, others in manual 
labor; some are studying in their cells, others are hearing con- 
fessions in the church, and others are abroad about the affairs of 
the house. What is all this but several members in one body, and 
several voices in one concert, that so there may be an exact pro- 
portion and beauty in the church ? There is no other reason for 
putting a great many strings to the same lute, and a great many 
pipes into the same organ, but to make the music more pleasant, 
by the variety of the sounds. This is the coat of several colors, 
which the patriarch Jacob made for his son Joseph. And such 
were the curtains of the tabernacles, which God commanded 
Moses to paint and set out with wonderful variety and beauty. 
Gen. xxxvii. Exod. xxvi. xxxvi. 

13. If so, and it is convenient it should be so, for the beauty 
and order of the church, why do we not lay aside the vicious 
custom we have got of detracting from our neighbors, of passing 
sentence on their actions, and making ourselves judges over other 
men, because they do not do what we do ? This is destroying 
the body of the church, rending Joseph's coat, disturbing and 
despoiling the harmony of the heavenly music : it is like desiring 
that the members of the church should be all feet, or all hands, 
or all eyes. But if all the body were eyes, where would the ears 
be ? and if all were ears, what would become of the eyes ? 

14. Thus you see how great a mistake it is to blame another, 
because he has not what I have, or cannot do what I do ; as it 
would be in the eyes to despise the feet for not seeing, or the 
feet to find fault with the eyes for not walking, and bearing the 

212 



390 THE sinner's guide. 

whole burthen on them. For it is requisite the feet should take 
pains, and the eyes should always be at rest; that the former 
should be always on the ground, and the latter above them, free 
from dust or any thing that may sully them. Nor are the eyes, 
notwithstanding, their continual repose, less serviceable to the 
body than the feet that take so much pains. As the steersman 
in a vessel, that stands at the helm, with his compass before him, 
does as much good as they that are always on deck or hauling the 
ropes, that look after the sails or that stand at the pump. On 
the contrary, he that we think does least in reality does most, be- 
cause it is not the labor that is taken about a thing, but the 
value of the thing itself, together with the importance of it, that 
makes it more or less excellent ; unless we will say, that a labo- 
rious plain man, for example, does the commonwealth more ser- 
vice than a discreet and prudent statesman, because of the two he 
works the hardest. 

15. He that considers this seriously will leave every one to his 
calling ; that is, he vnW let a foot be a foot, and the hand be 
still a hand, and will never desire that the body should be all 
foot or all hand. This is what the apostle endeavors to persuade 
us all to in the epistle above cited ; and it is the advice he gives 
us in these words : " Let not him that eateth not, judge him 
that eateth ;" because he that eats may perhaps stand in need 
of what he eats, and be endowed with some nobler virtue than 
yours is, and which you want. So that he is not to be blamed by 
you for eating, since, in all appearance, his other virtues may 
make him better than you are. For as in music, those notes that 
are on the lines are as good as those that are between them, so 
he that eats disturbs the harmony and concord of the church no 
more than he that abstains ; nor he that seems to do nothing, any 
more than he that is always employed, if he spends his leisure 
time so as to endeavor to make himself serviceable to his neighbor 
hereafter. 

16. St. Bernard advises us against this same fault, when he 
says, " That none ought to examine into another man's way of 
life, to pass judgment on it, but those that are judges and rulers 
in the church; much less is a man to put another person's life 
in the same scale with his own, for fear it should happen to him 
as it did to a certain monk, who, being troubled to have his poverty 
compared with Gregory's riches, heard a voice, which told him he 
was much richer in a cat he had, than the other with all his 
wealth ;" Serm. 4. in Cantica. 



THE sinner's guide. 391 



CHAPTER IX. 



The third Advice of the Vigilance and Care every virtuous Man 

ought to live with. 

1. Having proposed in this rule so many different virtues, and 
given so many instructions on the regulating of our lives, our 
next advice is, to endeavor to procure one general virtue, which 
may comprehend, and, as far as is possible, to supply the want of 
the rest ; this is the rather advisable, because our understanding 
is such that it cannot conceive many things at once. This virtue 
is a perpetual solicitude and vigilance, and a continual attention to 
whatsoever we do or say, that so every thing may be brought to 
the rule and moderation of reason. 

2. We are to behave ourselves in this point like an ambassador 
that is to speak to a sovereign prince. He has his attention fixed 
on the matter he is to discourse of, he weighs every word he 
speaks, he manages the tone of his voice, and considers every 
posture and motion of his body, and this all at the same time. 
Thus he that serves God should use his utmost endeavors to be 
always watchful and attentive upon himself; whether he speaks 
or holds his tongue, whether he asks a question, gives an answer, 
whether at table, in the street or in the church, at home or 
abroad, he is to have his rule and compass always with him, to 
measure every action, every word, nay, every thought, that so all 
may square to the law of God, to the judgment of reason and to 
decency. For the distance between good and evil being so great, 
and God having given our souls a natural knowledge of both, 
there is scarce any man so ignorant, but, if he weighs what he 
does, will more or less discover what he ought to do, and, therefore, 
his attention and solicitude is as serviceable as all the instructions 
of this rule and many more. 

3. This is the care the Holy Ghost recommended to us, when 
he said, " Watch carefully over yourself, O man, and over your own 
soul I" and the last of the three advices the prophet Micah gave us, 
as we have observed already, was, " to walk carefully with God," 
which is to be solicitous to do nothing in contradiction to his will ; 
Mic. vi. 8. The many eyes Ezechiel's mysterious animals had, 
teach us what vigilance and care we should use in this battle, 
where our enemies are so numerous, and we have so much to 
attend to ; Ezek. i. The same is represented to us by the posture of 
the seventy stout men that guarded Solomon's bed. They had 
their sw^ords on their thighs ready to draw, to express how watch- 
ful and ready he must be who walks in the very midst of so many 
enemies : Cant. iii. 



392 THE sinner's guide. 

4. Besides the many dangers we are exposed to, another 
reason for this extraordinary vigilance is the niceness and con- 
sequence of this business, especially to those who aspire to the 
perfection of a spiritual life. For to behave ourselves, and to 
live as God would have us, to preserve ourselves from all the 
stains and spots of this world, to live in this flesh without the cor- 
ruptions of it, " to keep ourselves free from reproof till the day 
of Christ," as the apostle says, are things so high and so far 
above the reach of nature, that we stand in need of all these, and 
many more helps, and even of the assistance of God's grace ; 
Phil. i. 10. 

5. Consider how attentive a man is when he is on any nice, 
curious work ; for it is certain this is the nicest w^ork, and 
requires attention. Observe how cautiously a man walks that 
carries a glass brimful of some precious liquor, for fear of spilling ; 
think of a man that is forced to cross a river on stones that are 
not conveniently placed, how carefully he treads, for fear he 
should fall in and be drowned. But, above all, consider how cau- 
tiously a rope-dancer sets every step ; how steadily he keeps his 
eyes, for fear of tottering and falling one way or other. Do you 
always endeavor to carry yourself with the same circumspection, 
especially at first, till it become habitual, so as not to speak a 
word, entertain the least thought, or make any motion that may, 
if possible, deviate from the line of virtue. Seneca advises us to 
this by an example as profitable as it is familiar. "A man (says 
he) that has a mind to acquire virtue, must imagine himself to be 
always in the presence of some great person he has a veneration 
for, and endeavor to do and say every thing just as he would if 
that person were really present ;" Epis. 25. 

6. Another way, no less proper than the former, is, to think we 
have no longer to live than the present day, and so to behave our- 
selves as if we were really persuaded we should appear that same 
night before the tribunal of Christ, to give him an account of our 
whole life. 

7. But the best way of all is, to walk always, as much as pos- 
sibly we can, in the presence of Almighty God, to set him always 
before our eyes (for he is truly present every where), and to 
perform all our actions, as having so great a Majesty for the wit- 
ness and judge of whatsoever we do, begging him grace to carry 
ourselves so as may best become his divine presence. This at- 
tention, which we advise to hear, should have two ends ; the one 
of considering God interiorly, of walking before him, of adoring 
him, of praising and reverencing, loving and thanking him, and 
of offering a sacrifice of devotion to him on the altar of our hearts ; 
the other is, to reflect on every word or action, and to see that 
nothing be done or sai^ to the prejudice of virtue. We should 



THE sinner's guide. 393 

have one eye always fixed on God, to beg his grace, and the 
other always cast down on ourselves, to see what it is becomes us 
most, and to direct us in employing our lives to the best advan- 
tage. We are to make use of the light God has given us ; first, 
to observe those things that refer to God, and next, to correct 
and perfect our own actions, meditating seriously on God, and 
on the extent of our duties. And though this is not always prac- 
ticable, we must endeavor yet to do it, as often and as long as 
we can : for this kind of attention is no hinderance to our cor- 
poral exercises. The heart, on the contrary, will by this means 
have the frequent opportunity of stealing off in the very heat of 
temporal engagements and business, and of hiding itself in the 
wounds of Jesus Christ. The importance of this instruction is 
such, that it has obhged me to repeat it, though I have given it 
before in the Memorial of a Christian Life. 



CHAPTER X. 

The fourth Advice of the Fortitude requisite to the obtaining 

Virtue. 

1. The foregoing advice has furnished us with eyes to see our 
duty. This will furnish us arms, that is, fortitude, to perform it. 
For since there are in virtue two difficulties, the first whereof 
consists in distinguishing betwixt good and bad, and separating 
the one from the other ; the second is overcoming of the bad, and 
in pursuing of the good ; attention and watchfulness are neces- 
sary for that, and diligence and fortitude for this ; and if either of 
these two be wanting, our virtue will be imperfect ; for either it 
will be blind, if there is no attention, or else impotent, if fortitude 
be wanting. 

2. This fortitude is not the same whose part it is to moderate 
boldness and fear, which is one of the four cardinal virtues, but 
a general fortitude necessary for the overcoming of all those dif- 
ficulties that may lie in our way to virtue. To this end it always 
goes along with it, with sword in hand, and makes way for it 
wherever it goes. Because virtue, according to the philosophers, 
is a hard and difficult thing ; and, therefore, it is convenient it 
should always have this by it, to assist it in breaking through these 
difficulties. For as a smith is always to have his hammer in his 
hand, because of the hardness of the metal he is to work on, so 
this fortitude is like a spiritual hammer, which a good man is 
never to be without, if he designs to overcome the difficulty he 

50 



394 THE sinner's guide. 

shall meet with in virtue. So that a smith without his hammer 
can do nothing, neither can he who is in pursuit of virtue, if he 
has not this fortitude to assist him. To prove this, what virtue is 
there that has not some particular labor and hardship in it ? Take 
which of them you please, you will find it so. Prayer, fasting, 
obedience, temperance, poverty of spirit, patience, chastity, 
humility, all of them, in short, have ever some difficulty or 
other joining with them, arising either from self-love, from the 
world, or the devil. If, then, this fortitude be taken away, what 
will the love of virtue be able to do when it is disarmed and can 
do nothing for them ? 

3. Whosoever, therefore, you are, that desire to improve your- 
self in virtue, look on these words, which the Lord of all virtues 
and strength spoke formerly to Moses, though in another sense, 
and directed to you : " Take this rod in your hand, for with it 
you shall do wonders and miracles, by which you shall bring my 
people out of Egypt ;" Exod. iv. 17. Assure yourself, that as 
his rod was the instrument of all those wonders, and that which 
put an end to so glorious an enterprise, so this rod of fortitude 
is that which must overcome all the difficulties that either the love 
of the flesh or the devil shall lay in their way, and it is by this 
you are to bring off your undertaking with success. And, there- 
fore, let it not be out of your hand, for if you once lay it down, 
you will not be able to do any of these wonders. 

4. Therefore, I think fit in this place, to give notice of a great 
error those that begin to serve God are apt to fall into ; they, 
having read in some pious books how great the consolations and 
delights of the Holy Ghost are, and how sweet and delightful 
charity is, persuade themselves immediately that there is nothing 
but pleasure in the way to virtue, without any mixture of labar 
and pains. And, therefore, they prepare themselves for it, as if 
it were an easy and pleasant undertaking, so that they do not 
think of arming themselves for a fight, but of dressing for some 
public entertainment. They never consider, that though the love 
of God is sweet in itself, there is a great deal of bitterness before 
a man can get to it ; for, first of all, self-love must be over- 
come ; a man must fight against himself, and what war so hard as 
this is ? Isaias told us of the necessity of both : " Shake the dust 
off from you," says he, " O Jerusalem ; rise up, and sit down ;" 
Isa. lii. 2. There is no trouble, it is true, in sitting down, but 
there is a great deal in shaking off the dust of earthly affections, 
and in rising from the sleep of sin. This is what we must do be- 
fore we are to think of enjoying the rest which the prophet means 
by sitting down. 

5. It is likewise true that God has great comforts in store for 
those that work hard, and for all such as have parted with the 



THE sinner's guide. 395 

pleasures of this world for those of heaven. But unless this ex- 
change be made, and if a man will not let go what he holds, he 
may assure himself this refreshment will not be granted him. 
For we know the children of Israel had not manna given them in 
the wilderness till they had spent all the flour they had carried out 
of Egypt. 

6. But to come home to our subject : those persons who will 
not arm themselves with this fortitude must account on what they 
look for as lost, and never think of finding it, unless they 
change their affections, and alter their ways of proceeding. They 
may be assured, that rest is purchased by labor, the victory by 
fighting, joy by tears, and the most delightful love of God by 
self-hatred. This is the reason why laziness and sloth are so 
often condemned in the Proverbs, whereas fortitude and diligence 
are so highly commended, as we have shown elsewhere ; for the 
Holy Ghost, who is the Author of this doctrine, knew very well, 
that the one was no small hinderance to virtue, and the other for- 
warded it as much. Treatise of Prayer, c. ii. § 2. 

§1. Of the Means of acquiring this Fortitude. — 7. You 
will ask me, perhaps, what the means are for obtaining of this 
fortitude, which is no less difficult than other virtues. For the 
wise man had reason to begin his alphabet that is so full of 
divine instructions with this sentence : " Who has found a strong 
woman? She is to be valued more than all treasures and precious 
stones that are brought from the farthest parts of the earth ;" 
Prov. xxxi. 10. What means, then, must we use to find out so 
inestimable a thing as this is ? We must first consider what this 
value is, because that which contributes to the purchasing so im- 
mense a treasure as that of virtue is, must certainly itself be of 
no small esteem. For what can be the reason why worldly men 
fly so fast from virtue, but the difficulty cowardly and lazy per- 
sons find in it ? The slothful man says, " There is a Hon in the 
way ; I shall be killed in the middle of the street ;" Prov. xxii. 
13. And the same wise man says, in another place, " The fool 
stands with his arms across, and says, A little with ease is much 
better than a handful with affliction and labor ;" Eccl. iv. 5, 6. 
Since, therefore, there is nothing that frightens us from virtue but 
the difficulty of it, if we can gather strength to overcome this 
difficulty, the conquest of the whole kingdom of virtue follows. 
Is there any man that will not take courage, and endeavor to 
acquire this fortitude on the acquisition of which depends the 
making ourselves masters of the kingdom of virtue, and conse- 
quently of that of heaven, which is to be gained by those only 
that use violence ? This same fortitude overcomes self-love, with 
all its assistants ; and when once we have routed this enemy, the 
love of God, or, to speak more properly, God himself, comes in 



396 THE sinner's guide. 

its place ; since, according to St. John, " He that remains in charity 
remains in God ;" Matt. xi. 12. 

8. Another thing that is a great help to ns, is the good exam- 
ple of so many holy men as are in the world, poor, naked, hare- 
foot, pale, and worn out with watching and fasting, and deprived 
of all the conveniences of this life ; some of whom are so desi- 
rous of labors and mortifications, and so much in love with them, 
that, as merchants run to great fairs, and scholars to the most 
flourishing universities, so they run up and down from monastery 
to monastery, from province to province, in search of great auster- 
ities and rigors, where they find no food, but hunger ; no riches, 
but poverty ; no ease, but the cross and perpetual macerations. 
What can be more opposite to the practice of the world and to 
the inclinations of the greater part of mankind, than for a man 
to go into strange countries to find out a way to suffer more 
hunger, to be poorer, worse clothed, and more naked than he was 
before ? This certainly is repugnant to flesh and blood, but ex- 
tremely consonant to the Spirit of God. 

9. But what condemns our ease most is the example of so many 
martyrs, who have undergone such different and cruel kinds of 
deaths, for the purchasing of the kingdom of heaven. There is 
not a day passes in the whole year but we have the examples of 
some of them set before us by the church, not only to celebrate 
their memories by the feasts it institutes in honor of them, but to 
profit by imitation of those virtues they were so famous for. One 
day w^e have the example of a martyr that was broiled, another 
day of one that was impaled alive, another day of one that was 
thrown into the sea, another of one that was cast down headlong 
from a rock, another of one that had his flesh torn off with red 
hot pincers, another of one that was pulled limb from limb, an- 
other of one that was shot to death with arrows, another of one 
that was boiled in a cauldron of oil, with an infinity of other tor- 
ments they were put to. Nay, several of them have undergone, 
not one sort of torment only, but all that human nature could 
possibly suffer. How many have been carried from prison to the 
whipping-post, from the whipping-post to the stake, from thence 
to be torn with iron hooks, and, after all, have died by the sword, 
which was very often the only instrument that could take their 
lives away, but yet could not hurt their faith nor daunt their 
courage. 

10. What shall I say of the cruel devices and inventions, not 
of men but of devils, to attack the faith and fortitude of the spirits, 
by the torture of the bodies ? Some, after having been barba- 
rously slashed and wounded, were laid on beds of nettles and 
sharp pieces of tiles and stones, that, whilst they lay there, all the 
parts of their bodies might be wounded at once, and that no mem- 



THE sinner's guide. 397 

ber might be free from pain, and their faith thus assaulted by an 
army of unheard-of torments. Others they made walk barefoot 
over hot coals, and tied others to wild horses' tails, and so dragged 
them through briers and over flint-stones. They had a dreadful 
invention for others of a wheel that was covered all over with 
sharp razors, that so the body that was fastened to it, might, 
on the motion of the wheel, be cut to pieces by the rows of 
razors set in it. Others were stretched out on wooden horses, 
and, as they lay in this posture, with their bodies tied fast down, 
the executioner made great furrows in their flesh from head to 
foot w^ith iron hooks. Nor could the cruelty of those tyrants be 
satisfied with such barbarous torments; their fury made them 
invent another strange one, which was to bend down the branches 
of two great trees with all the force they could, and to tie the 
martyrs to them by the feet, that so flying up again with more 
violence, they might pull the body of the saint into two pieces, 
and each branch carry one half along with it. There was a certain 
martyr in Nicodemia, and afterwards a great many were put to 
the same kind of torments, that had been whipped so barbarously, 
that not only his skin but the greatest part of his flesh was torn 
off, so that his very bones might be seen through holes they had 
made with their whips ; when they had done this, they washed 
his wounds with vinegar, and sprinkled them over with salt, and 
not thinking this enough, because they saw the saint was not dead 
yet, they laid him on a gridiron over a fire, and there turned him 
from one side to the other with iron forks, till the holy body 
being scorched and broiled, the soul left it, and went immediately 
to God. Thus death itself, which is said to be of all things the 
most terrible, has been in some manner outdone by these barba- 
rous tormentors, because their design was not so much to kill as 
to torture, by inflicting the most cruel pains they could think of, 
so as to force the soul to leave the body by the extremity of the 
sufferings it endured, though they had received no wounds that 
were mortal. 

11. These martyrs had the same kind of bodies that we have, 
the substance was the same, the composition the same ; they had 
the very same God to assist them that we have ; nor was the 
glory they expected different from that which we look for. Now 
if these persons underwent such severe torments, and such cruel 
deaths, for obtaining of eternal fife, shall we refuse to mortify 
the irregular desires of our flesh for the same end ? Shall we 
grudge to fast one day, when these holy men have died of hun- 
ger ? Why shall we think it much to say a few prayers on our 
knees with devotion, when we see these saints have continued to 
pray for their enemies, though they were nailed to the cross? 
Why shall we be unwilhng to mortify and retrench our desires 

2K 



398 THE sinner's guide. 

and passions a little, when these persons have so cheerfully given 
their limbs to be cut and torn in pieces? Why should we be 
against the taking of a little time every day, to retire ourselves 
into our closets, to meditate there, when these men have been 
shut up so long, in dark prisons and dungeons ? And if these, in 
fine, have held down their backs to be ploughed up and furrowed, 
why shall we grudge to take a discipline now and then on ours, 
for the love of Christ ? 

12. But if these examples cannot move us, let us lift up our 
eyes towards the sacred wood of the cross, let us consider who 
it is that hangs on it, in the greatest pain and torment imaginable 
for the love of us. " Consider him," says St. Paul, " that en- 
dured such contradictions from sinners, for fear you should be 
tired and lose courage ;" Heb. xii. 3. This is a surprising ex- 
ample, take it which way you will. For if you consider his suffer- 
ings, they could not have possibly been greater ; you will find 
also, it was for no crime of his own that he suffered, he being 
innocence itself; nor for any necessity he was in, because 
he is Lord of all created beings. It was only an effect of 
pure goodness and love. And notwithstanding his being so 
great, he underwent such bitter torments, both in his body and 
in his soul, that all the sufferings of the martyrs, and of the whole 
together, are not fit to be put into the balance with them. His 
torments were such that the very heavens were astonished at 
them, the earth shook, the rocks were rent asunder, and the most 
senseless beings were sensible of them. And can man then alone 
be so hard, as not to be wrought upon by that which moved the 
very elements ? and can he be so ungrateful, as not to copy some- 
thing from him who came into the world to give him an example ? 
For this reason, as our Saviour himself said, *' It was requisite that 
Christ should die, and so enter into his glory ;" Luke xxiv. 16. 
For, after his coming into the world, to conduct us to heaven, 
which was to be done by the way of the cross, it was convenient 
that he himself should be crucified the first, that so the servant, 
seeing the master so ill dealt with, might have the better courage 
to suffer. 

13. Who, then, can be so ungrateful, so delicate, so proud, or 
so impudent, as to desire to go to heaven by living at his ease 
and pleasure, when he sees the Lord of majesty, with all his 
friends and followers, take so much pains to get thither ? King 
David commanded Urias, after his coming from the camp, to take 
his leave and refresh himself at his own house, and to sup with 
his wife ; but the loyal subject replied, " The ark of God, and 
Israel, and Judah, are in their tents ; and my master Jacob, and 
my Lord's servants, are in the open field, and shall I then go to 
my house to eat and drink, and lie with my wife ? By your life, 



THE sinner's guide. 399 

and by the life of your soul, I will not do this thing." 2 Kings 
xi. 11. O true and faithful servant, who were as worthy of 
praise, as you were unworthy of death ! How can you, O Christian, 
choose but have the same respect for your Lord when you see 
him stretched out on the cross ? The ark of God, that is made 
of incorruptible cedar, undergoes torments and death itself, and 
do you seek your own ease and pleasure ? This ark in which the 
hidden manna was kept, which is the bread of angels, drank gall 
and vinegar for you, and do you hunt after your sweet morsels 
and delicacies ? This ark, in which the tables of the law were 
kept, which are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge 
of God, is despised and esteemed no better than folly, and do 
you aim at nothing less than honor and praise ? But if the ex- 
ample of this mystical ark is not sufficient to confound you, take 
with it the patterns and the sufferings of so many saints, of so 
many prophets, martyrs, confessors and virgins, who have under- 
gone such pains and torments, and have lived in such rigors 
and austerities. The apostle gives us a short view of their suffer- 
ings in these words : " They have been mocked, they have 
been scourged, and put into chains and prisons. They have been 
stoned, they have been sawn asunder, they have been tempted, 
they have been slaift with the sword, they have wandered about 
in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted and tor- 
mented, of whom the world was not worthy ; they wandered in 
wildernesses, over mountains, in dens, and in caverns of the earth" 
(Heb. xi. 36, 37, 38) ; and yet, amidst all these miseries, they 
remained unshaken and constant in their faith. 

14. If the saints led such lives, and if, what is much more yet, 
the Saint of saints himself lived no otherwise, I cannot see what 
privilege they claim, nor what they propose to themselves, who 
think of going where these are now, in a road of delights and plea- 
sures. If, therefore, you desire to share with them in their glory, 
you must, whilst you are here, partake of their labors ; if you in- 
tend to reign with them hereafter, you must resolve upon nothing 
less than suffering with them now. 

15. What I have here said is to exhort you to this noble virtue 
of fortitude, that so you may imitate that holy soul, of whom Sol- 
omon has given us this commandment : " She hath girded her loins 
with strength, and has fortified her arms ;" Prov. xxxi. 17. 

I will conclude this chapter and the doctrine of this second 
book, with that excellent sentence of our Saviour: "If any man 
will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and 
follow me ;" Luke ix. 23. Our divine Master has here given 
us an abridgement, in a few words, of the whole doctrine of the 
gospel, the design of which is the forming of a perfect and evan- 



400 THE sinner's guide. 

gelical man, who, though he enjoys a kind of paradise within, is, 
nevertheless, continually stretched upon a cross without ; so that 
the sweetness of the one tempers the bitterness of the other, and 
the pleasure he finds in the one makes him willingly embrace the 
toils and hardships he is to expect from the other. 



FINIS. 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK I.— PART I. 



A POWERFUL EXHORTATION TO VIRTUE AND THE KEEPING OF GOD'S 

COMMANDMENTS. 

Page 
CHAP. I. Of the first Motive that obliges us to Virtue and the service of God, which is 
his being, considered in itself, and of tlie Excellency of his Divine Per- 
fection, 9 

II. Of the second Motive that obliges us to Virtue and the service of God, 

which is the benefit of our Creation, 18 

III. Of the third Motive that oblisres us to serve God, which is, the Benefit of 

our Preservation and Direction, 24 

IV. Of the fourth Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, whicJi is, the 

inestimable Benefit of our Redemption 31 

V. Of the fifth Motive that obliges us to Virtue, which is, the Benefit of our 

Justification 39 

VI. Of the sixth Motive that obliges us to the love of Virtue, which is, the 

Benefit of Divine Election, I 49 

VII. Of the seventh Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, 

Death, the first of the four last things, 54 

VIII. Of the eighth Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, 

the last Judgment, the second of the four last things, 63 

IX. Of the ninth Motive that obliges us to Virtue, which is Heaven, the third 

of the four last things, 69 

X. Of the tenth Motive that obliges us to Virtue, which is, the fourth of the four 

last things, that is, the Pains of Hell, -^ — 78 



PART II. 

OP THE SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES PROMISED TO VIRTUE IN 

THIS LIFE, AND PARTICULARLY OF TWELVE EXTRAORDINARY 

PRIVILEGES BELONGING TO IT. 

CHAP. I. Of the eleventh Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, the 

inestimable advantages promised it in this life, 89 

II. Of the twelfth Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, the 
particular care the Divine Providence takfis of the good in order to make 
them happy, and the severity with which the same Providence punishes 
tne wicked. — The first Privilege, 97 

III. Of the second Privilege of Virtue, that is, the Grace of the Holy Ghost be- 

stowed upon virtuous men, - 108 

IV. Of the third Privilege of Virtue, viz., Supernatural Light and Knowledge, 110 

V. Of the fourth privilege of V^irtue, that is, the consolation winch good men 

receive from the Holy Ghost, 117 

VI. Of the fifth Privilege of Virtue, viz., the peace of conscience which the Just 

enjoy, and the inward remorse that torments the Wicked, 128 

VII. Of the sixth Privilege of Virtue, viz., the hopes the Just have in God's 

mercy, and of the vain confidence of the Wicked, 135 

VIII. Of the seventh Privilege of Virtue, viz., the true liberty which the Vir- 
tuous enjoy, and of the miserable and unaccountable slavery the Wicked 

live in, 144 

IX. Of the eighth Privilege of Virtue, viz., the inward peaco and calm the Vir- 
tuous enjoy, and of the miserable restlessness and disturbance the Wicked 

feel within themselves, 159 

X. Of the ninth Privilege of Virtue, viz., that God hears the prayers of the Just, 

and rejects those of the Wicked, 169 

XI. Of the tenth Privilege of Virtue, which is, the assistance good men receive 
from God in their afflictions, and of the impatience, on the contrary, with 

which the Wicked suffer theirs 174 

XII. Of the eleventh Privilege of Virtue, which consists in the care God takes to 

supply the temporal necessities of the Just, 182 

XIII. The twelfth Privilege of Virtue, which is, the quiet and hac^sy death of 

the Virtuous ; and, on the conrrary. the deplorable end of the Wicked, 179 

51 212 (401) 



402 CONTENTS. 



PART III. 

WHEREIN ARE ANSWERED ALL THOSE EXCUSES MEN GENERALLY MAKE 
FOR NOT FOLLOWING VIRTUE. 

CHAP. I. Against the first Excuse of those who defer changing their Lives, and advanc- 
ing in Virtue, until another Time, 203 

II. Against those Persons who defer their Penance to the Hour of Death 213 

III. Against those who continue in their Sins, confiding in the Mercy of God, 227 

IV, Of those Persons who excuse themselves from following Virtue by saying the 

way to it is rough and uneasy 239 

V. Against those who refuse to walk in the way of Virtue, because they love the 

World, 254 

VI. The Conclusion of all that is contained in this First Book, 270 



BOOK II. 

THE DOCTRINE OF VIRTUE ; WITH NECESSARY INSTRUCTIONS AND ADVICE 
FOR MAKING A MAN VIRTUOUS. 

Preface, 275 



PART I. 

WHICH TREATS OF VICES, AND OF THE REMEDIES TO BE APPLIED 

AGAINST THEM. 

CHAP. I. Of the firm Resolution a good Christian is to make never to commit any 

mortal Sin, 278 

II. Remedies against Pride, 282 

III. Remedies against Covetousness, 289 

IV. Remedies against Impurity, 294 

V. Remedies against Envy, 302 

VI. Remedies against Gluttony, 305 

VII. Remedies against Anger, and the Hatred and Enmities which arise from it, . . . 308 

VIIL Remedies against Sloth, 312 

IX. Of some other Sins which every good Christian must endeavor to avoid, 315 

X. Of Venial Sins, 321 

XI. Of some other shorter Remedies against all Sorts of Sins, but particularly 

those Seven called Capital, 323 



PART II. 

CONTAINING SUCH RULES AS ARE REQUISITE FOR THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE. 

CHAP. I. Of three Kinds of Virtues, wherein consists the fullness of all Justice, 329 

n. Of Man's Duty to himself, 360 

III. Of Man's Duty towards his Neighbor, 349 

IV. Of Man's Duty to God, 353 

V. Of the Obligation of particular States and Callings, 369 

VI. First Advice upon the Esteem we are to have of the different Virtues, for 

the better understanding the Rule of a good Life, 371 

VII. Of four necessary Instructions that follow upon this Doctrine, 376 

VIII. A second Advice upon the different ways of Living there are in the Church, . . . 385 

IX. The third Advice of the vigilance and care every Man ought to live with, 391 

X The fourth Advice of the Fortitude requisite to the obtaining of Virtue, 393 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK I.— PART I. 



A POWERFUL EXHORTATION TO VIRTUE AND THE KEEPING OF GOD'S 

COxMMANDMENTS. 

Page 
CHAP. I. Of the first Motive that obliges us to Virtue and the service of God, which is 
his being, considered in itself, and of the Excellency of his Divine Per- 
fection, 9 

II. Of the second Motive that obliges us to Virtue and the service of God, 

which is the benefit of our Creation, 18 

III. Of the third Motive that obliiies us to serve God, which is, the Benefit of 

our Preservation and Direction, ^ 24 

IV. Of the fourth Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, the 

inestimable Benefit of our Redemption, 31 

V. Of the fifth Motive that obliges us to Virtue, which is, the Benefit of our 

Justification, 39 

VI. Of the sixth Motive that obliges us to the love of Virtue, which is, the 

Benefit of Divine Election, 49 

VII. Of the seventh Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, 

Death, the first of tlie four last things, 54 

VIII. Of the eighth Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, 

the last Judgment, the second of the four last things, 63 

IX. Of the ninth Motive that obliges us to Virtue, wliich is Heaven, the third 

of the four last things, 69 

X. Of the tenth Motive that obliges us to Virtue, which is, the fourth of the four 

last things, that is, the Pains of Hell, -.-^. 78 



PART II. 

OF THE SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES PROMISED TO VIRTUE IN 

THIS LIFE, AND PARTICULARLY OF TWELVE EXTRAORDINARY 

PRIVILEGES BELONGING TO IT. 

CHAP. I. Of the eleventh Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, which is, the 

inestimable advantages promised it in this life, 89 

II. Of the twelfth Motive that obliges us to the pursuit of Virtue, v/hich is, the 
particular care the Divine Providence takes of the good in order to make 
them happy, and the severity with which the same Providence punishes 
the wicked. — The first Privilege, 97 

III. Of the second Privilege of Virtue, that is, the Grace of the Holy Ghost be- 

stowed upon virtuous men, 108 

IV. Of the third Privilege of Virtue, viz.. Supernatural Light and Knowledge, 110 

V. Of the fourth privilege of Virtue, that is, the consolation which good men 

receive from the Holy Ghost, 117 

VI. Of the fifth Privilege of Virtue, viz., the peace of conscience which the Just 

enjoy, and the inward remorse that torments the Wicked, 128 

VII. Of the sixth Privilege of Virtue, viz., the hopes the Just have in God's 

mercy, and of the vain confidence of the Wicked, 135 

VIII. Of the seventh Privilege of Virtue, viz., the true liberty which the Vir- 
tuous enjoy, and of the juiserable and unaccountable slavery the Wicked 

live in, 144 

IX. Of the eighth Privilege of Virtue, viz., the inward peaco and calm the Vir- 
tuous enjoy, and of the miserable restlessness and disturbance the Wicked 

feel within themselves, 159 

X. Of the ninth Privilege of Virtue, viz., that God hears the prayers of the Just, 

and rejects those of the Wicked, 169 

XI. Of the tenth Privilege of Virtue, which is, the assistance good men receive 
from God in their afflictions, and of the impatience, on the contrary, with 

which the Wicked suffer theirs 174 

XII. Of the eleventh Privilege of Virtue, which consists in the care God takes to 

supply the temporal necessities of the Just, 182 

XIII. The twelfth Privilege of Virtue, which is, the quiet and hajjpy death of 

the Virtuous ; and, on the conrrary, the deplorable eud of the Wicked 179 

51 212 (401) 



402 CONTENTS. 



PART III. 

WHEREIN ARE ANSWERED ALL THOSE EXCUSES MEN GENERALLY MAKE 
FOR NOT FOLLOWING VIRTUE. 

CHAP. I. Against the first Excuse of those who defer changing their Lives, and advanc- 
ing in Virtue, until anotiier Time, " 203 

II. Against those Persons who defer their Penance to the Hour of Death, 213 

III. Against those who continue in their Sins, confiding in the Mere}' of God, 227 

IV. Of those Persons who excuse themselves from following Virtue by saying the 

way to it is rough and uneasy , 239 

V. Against those who refuse to walk in the way of Virtue, because they love the 

World, 254 

VI. The Conclusion of all that is contained in this First Book, ' 270 



BOOK II. 

THE DOCTRINE OF VIRTUE; WITH NECESSARY INSTRUCTIONS AND ADVICE 
FOR MAKING A MAN VIRTUOUS. 

Preface, 275 



PART I. 

WHICH TREATS OF VICES, AND OF THE REMEDIES TO BE APPLIED 

AGAINST THEM. 

CHAP. I. Of the firm Resolution a good Christian is to raake never to commit any 

mortal Sin, 278 

II. Remedies against Pride, 282 

III. Remedies against Covetousness 289 

IV. Remedies against Impurity, 294 

V. Remedies against Envy, 302 

VI. Remedies against Gluttony, :W5 

VII. Remedies against Anger, and the Hatred and Enmities which arise from it, . . . 308 

VIIL Remedies against Sloth, 312 

IX. Of some other Sins which every good Christian must endeavor to avoid, 315 

X. Of Venial Sins, 321 

XI. Of some other shorter Remedies against all Sorts of Sins, but particularly 

those Seven called Capital, 323 



PART II. 

CONTAINING SUCH RULES AS ARE REQUISITE FOR THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE. 

CHAP. I. Of three Kinds of Virtues, wherein consists the fullness of all Justice, 329 

II. Of Man's Duty to himself, 3tiO 

III. Of Man's Duty towards his Neighbor, 349 

IV. Of Man's Duty to God 353 

V. Of the Obligation of particular St<ates and Callings, 369 

VI. First Advice upon the Esteem we are to have of the different Virtues, for 

the better understanding the Rule of a good Life, 371 

VII. Of four necessary Instructions that follow upon this Doctrine, 376 

VIII. A second Advice upon the different ways of Living there are in the Church, . . . 3P5 

IX. The third Advice of the vigilance and care every Man ought to live with, 391 

X The fourth Advice of the Fortitude requisite to the obtaining of Virtue, 393 



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